The 5th Wave
If the first thing going through your head when watching the trailer of “The 5th Wave” was, “great, another YA adaptation,” believe me when I say that I was right there with you. After “Twilight,” “The Hunger Games,” “The Mortal Instruments,” “Divergent” and “The Maze Runner,” it’s impossible not to feel burned out by the trend of adapting another young adult thriller that established some sense of “best seller” status for the big screen. “The 5th Wave” certainly has plenty of the typical elements of YA film adaptations, especially when compared to “Divergent” and “The Maze Runner,” but thankfully, the experienced team of writers (Susannah Grant (“Erin Brockovich”), Akiva Goldsman (an Oscar winner for “A Beautiful Mind”) & Jeff Pinkner (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”)) have the chops to pull something smart and entertaining out of Rick Yancey’s novel, rather than just try hitting the same buttons “The Hunger Games” did. It’s still not a great film, but it is fun to watch.
A big part of what makes “The 5th Wave,” which is ultimately a riff on “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” work is Chloe Grace Moretz, who plays the main character, Cassie Sullivan. When we first see the character, she is brandishing a rifle and going into a looted convenience store, hoping to find supplies. She comes across a wounded young man in the back. He has a handgun. She wants him to drop it before lowering her gun, and wants to see his other hand, which is under his jacket. He is wounded, and his hand is keeping him alive. As he removes it, she sees something shiny peeking out, and fires, killing the young man. She moves his jacket back to see that it was a cross. She is distraught, but we see later that she goes on. We then hear Cassie’s voice as she recounts the events that led to that moment, centering around the arrival of an alien ship, and waves of attack that are intended to wipe out much of humanity. It’s hard to imagine that Moretz is only 19 years old, because she projects a maturity and authority that feels out of step with other actresses at her age, but that makes sense when you consider that her big break was as Hit Girl in the “Kick-Ass” movies, and she’s helped cultivate a mature sense of herself as an actress in other roles such as “Let Me In,” “Hugo,” “If I Stay” and Kimberley Pierce’s “Carrie.” Director J Blakeson (“The Disappearance of Alice Creed”) utilizes that to the film’s advantage when Cassie loses her parents (her mother to a virus in the third wave, her father in a military shootout brought on by paranoia), and is separated from her younger brother, Sammy (Zackary Arthur), who is taken to a military base and will be groomed into a soldier to fight off the fifth wave by the steely resolve of Colonel Vosch (Liev Schreiber). As engaging as Moretz is, though, she can only do so much, and we spend almost as much time on the military base, where Sammy is in the same squad as Cassie’s thought-dead crush (Ben Parrish, played by Nick Robinson) and a tough young woman named Ringer (Maika Monroe) who come to discover a terrible truth that the audience will see almost immediately. We do keep up with Cassie’s journey to her brother, though, although she is sidelined by a gunshot to the leg that is tended by Evan Walker (Alex Roe), who seems friendly, but also a bit off. You’ll probably be able to figure out his secrets pretty quickly, as well, but thankfully, Moretz helps sell them in a film that may not have much that’s original to it, but plenty to keep us engaged as it reaches it’s ending, which sets up the inevitable next chapter in the series. Great, another YA franchise. Woo-hoo.
