The 5th Wave★★1/2
ET invasion
Where has all the sci-fi gone?
The book is better
Four waves of increasingly deadly alien attacks have left most of Earth decimated. Cassie is on the run, desperately trying to save her younger brother.
WARNING: Possible spoilers ahead.
When I go to see a movie that's based on a book, I honestly try to give it the benefit of the doubt, and view the movie as a separate entity. Sometimes, however, a movie fails to live up to its potential, and just fails—both as an adaptation and a stand-alone film.
The 5th Wave is based on a YA book of the same name by Rick Yancey, and—although I've already said as much a couple of times in this review—the book is SO MUCH better than its film adaptation. The book is thrilling, and features exciting surprises and characters who you get attached to, easily and quickly.
I understand why the movie can't keep some of the book's secrets (e.g., keeping a character's true identity hidden is hard when you see his/her face from the start). But the lack of interesting characters stems, in part, from the plot of the movie being horribly rushed ... and the lack of acting skills of the main characters. (Or, perhaps, the direction that they were given. I'm not quite sure.)
I'm also highly disappointed in the movie's lack of science fiction elements. The book has a lot of them, and they're important elements. They're also believable. This story is about an invasion by an advanced alien society, after all. The movie turns these items/plot points into gimmicks, or vaguely futuristic technology that comes across as cheap.
Additionally, I'm not sure that, if you haven't read the book, you'll really be able to follow—or care about—what's going on. (Thanks, also, to the rushed storyline and boring/wooden acting.)
I had hopes—not exactly high ones, but hopes—that this movie would be, if not wholly faithful, a decent adaptation of a great series starter. Alas.
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