With the conclusion of profitable franchises such as Twilight and The Hunger Games, and with Divergent and The Maze Runner series following suit, Hollywood is undoubtedly scrambling to find the next big young adult franchise. Picking up late in the race, Sony has finally decided to jump onto the saturated genre and take this journey of sequels with the release of The 5th Wave.
Over the last decade, there has been an upsurge in these hot commodities (teenage survivalist dystopian-focused novels), of which formula by now we have already familiarized with. First is to create a post-apocalyptic vision of future, be it the rise of science and technology or the collapse of human civilization, just as long as it is grounded on an issue that we are experiencing today: pollution, politics, poverty, privacy, etc. Second, set a new and questionable set of standards that taints our old values. Third, have the youth as protagonists that will fight to bring back these values, and fourth, build a romance subplot so it will appeal to a younger, target audience. These are the set of rules The 5th Wave faithfully abided to all through-out the movie.
The protagonist of the film, Cassie Sullivan (played by Chloë Grace Moretz), is your typical high school girl—she studies hard, parties occasionally, has a best friend and a crush, etc. Until “the last normal day of her life” comes with a giant spaceship or more accurate prop leftover from Independence Day suddenly materializes in the sky, unleashing havoc on earth and decimating its population in waves (yes, this is where the movie borrows its title).
Alex Roe and Chloë Grace Moretz in The 5th Wave. Photo via Columbia Pictures.
The first three waves are narrated to us in a flashback. “The 1st Wave” is an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out all power sources and sends the entire planet back to the Stone Age. “The 2nd Wave” comes in the form of geological disturbances, including skyscraper-high tsunamis. With “The 3rd Wave”, a mutated avian flu wipes out those who survived the first two waves. This brings us to the present, with “The 4th Wave” believed to be an alien invasion in the form of inhabited human hosts called “The Others”. Viewers are left to find out what the 5th wave will be (or that could be just them walking out half-way the movie).
The 5th Wave does not shine in terms of originality, as it is an utter pantomime of previous works any film or T.V. junkie will immediately notice: “The 1st Wave” is reminiscent of the T.V. series “Revolution”; “The 2nd Wave” a less disastrous version of films like 2012, The Day after Tomorrow and San Andreas; “The 3rd Wave” plays out like it is a scene carved out from Contagion; “The 4th Wave” takes cues from The Invasion; the youth military being inspired by The Red Dawn and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay; and Cassie’s journey is somewhat of a combination of I Am Legend and the pilot episode of “The Walking Dead”. Given that nowadays, where almost everything is exhausted of originality, borrowing from previous stories doesn’t necessarily mean that the film fails. It is quite the opposite actually as these influences blend well, and in the first thirty minutes of the film, no matter how cliché, prove to be actually engaging. The film holds this potential until the second act where it plummets to laziness, resorting to sloppy writing and dropping the ball entirely.
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Midway through the movie, director J. Blakeson’s film plays safe and presents a segment which is common to all young-adult films—a romance subplot devoid of spark. It happens when Cassie meets a wildcard, Evan Walker (played by Alex Roe). Viewers are forced into one of the most cringe-worthy romances “blossoming” on screen, what with such a sappy story line. In the end, we are left with more questions on Evan’s identity, hence his ultimately unjustified presence. The film neither sheds light on its fundamental mysteries: What do the aliens want? What do they really look like? We’ll have to find out in the sequel, or the threequel. Of course, the series is slated for a trilogy.
Nick Robinson and Chloë Grace Moretz in The 5th Wave. Photo via Columbia Pictures.
Moretz’s natural and convincing performance makes this generic young adult sci-fi watchable. Gone is the bad-assery of Hit Girl, as she makes use of her expressive emotions of sheer fear and utter disbelief. Co-rising star Nick Robinson (as Ben “Zombie’ Parish), does a decent job of playing his character. Liev Schreiber is in the film for some reason.
The odds of enjoying The 5th Wave can be correlated to how much you like Y.A. fiction in general. Had I read author Rick Yancey’s book first, maybe I’d have a better appreciation for the film. Alas, the film is inferior to previous young adult flicks and with its being a successor places it on the receiving end of the critics’ laborious ranting over the genre’s prevalence. Are we to expect more waves of young adult fiction in the future? The obvious answer is yes, and we can only hope for at least something better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMKg8-9pLlY
