One thing can be said about Hollywood. When they discover a
money making concept they’ll milk it as dry as a bone. This doesn’t mean those
movies made about a topic are bad but after a while they all sort of get mixed
in together and it becomes hard to differentiate one from another, especially
when they’re being released fast and furious (no, not that franchise here).
Lately it seems that the only reason for adults in films is to give birth and
then stand back and idly watch while teens do things like save the world. That
premise is a big part of THE 5TH WAVE.
Cassie Sullivan (Chloe Grace Moretz) is your typical teen
girl (as far as movie makers are concerned). She goes to school, pines over the
good looking boy Ben (Nick Robinson) and loves her parents. Her life gets
turned upside down within short order here as the Earth is invaded by aliens in
attacks termed waves. The first wave is an EMP that knocks out all electrical
systems, the second a combination of earthquake/tsunami that wipes out the
coasts, the third is a form of disease spread by birds and the fourth are
termed “silencers”, invaders who look human.
As Cassie and her family deal with each successive wave
until most of the world is ended, they make a last ditch effort with others to
band together in a camp. When the army shows up commanded by Col. Vosch (Liev
Schreiber) everyone is overjoyed. With buses only big enough to handle so many
at a time they’re filled with the youngest members of the camp first to take
them to Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Cassie is on board with her brother
Sam who forgets his teddy bear. As she runs to get it, the buses leave her
behind.
The joy is short lived as the adults in the group argue
about letting their children go unaccompanied, a fight breaks out and in an
attempt to regain order the troops open up on the parents. Cassie hides during
this but returns to find her father now dead joining her mother who died in the
disease wave. Determined to find her brother, she packs up the essentials and
heads out on foot to be rejoined with him. Along the way she’ll face the
dangers of alien drones that watch from the sky as well as “silencers” all
around.
As all of this goes on the Army takes the young people left
on the world and begins training them to be the next armed forces to protect
the planet. Visors are developed to allow the wearer to see the aliens beneath
the surface of the humans infested by them. Ben has made it to the base as well
and Sam is a part of his group. While Cassie tries to find her way to them the
youth groups train, preparing for a special mission. In the end a few twists
and turns (that some will see early on) occur and people the characters may
have trusted once are not what they seem. In the end will the Earth by saved or
not?
The movie offers a decent science fiction tale here, another
in a long line of alien invasion films that dates back to 1953’s WAR OF THE
WORLDS. This time around the concept of teen heroes has been added, a genre
that has been around but seems to have found more traction lately as well as
become a huge franchise generating machine for Hollywood with the success of
both THE HUNGER GAMES and DIVERGENT. The odds are that the same was intended
for this movie but the box office figures haven’t done as well as expected so
odds are this one ends here. I won’t say that’s a good or bad thing when it
comes to the actual movies themselves but the non-stop offerings of teen’s
saving everything, being smarter than adults or taking over every screen on
multiplexes across the country has made for some truly lackluster movies.
Box office sales are up but only because the price of the
tickets has risen as well. As corporations control the movies we see the more
pre-packaged product and less real movies we get at the theater. Certainly
there is a way to balance that but as long as the number crunchers are in
control the odds aren’t favorable in that happening. Once those numbers begin
to drop perhaps but that may take a while.
So for the time being let’s enjoy movies like this even if
they have become predictable. The acting in this one is better than most and
the production values are quite well done. While there are no standout
performances and every teen looks fresh from the pages of a fashion magazine,
all in all each does a solid job here. The effects are well done, a definite
requirement for a movie like this, but at the same time don’t offer a lot
that’s new.
While typing this I realized my final view on this film.
It’s not bad for a night’s entertainment but it won’t be one that you remember
a year from now, a movie that will be talked about in 30 years or that will
increase the star power of anyone involved. It’s a vanilla movie, one that
taste good but offers no substantial flavor. You can do worse with a movie to
watch at home than this, but don’t expect it to change the world either.
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