My novel is *somewhat* Young Adult SciFi, and in that regard, I’m always curious about adaptations that are in the vein. Not that I’ve watched all that many movies recently that fall under that umbrella…but this one had been sitting in my queue for a couple years, and I knew it was from a beloved book series, so I gave it a chance.
It was very “meh.”
THE BLURB:
The human race stands on the brink of extinction as a series of alien attacks decimate the planet, causing earthquakes, tsunamis and disease. Separated from her family, Ohio teenager Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz) will do whatever it takes to reunite with her brother Sam. Fate leads her to form an alliance with Evan Walker (Alex Roe), a mysterious young man who may be her last hope. Forced to trust each other, Cassie and Evan fight for survival during the fifth assault from the invaders.
WHAT WORKED:
The premise is fun, if not fairly straight-forward Post-Apoc SciFi fare. Aliens have landed on earth, and what the blurb up there doesn’t relate is that each of those “plagues” are referred to as “waves,” and in the 4th wave, the aliens look like humans. The 5th wave is the big reveal of the movie: what is the 5th wave?
It was also shot on location, which is fun. I thought the sequence where Chloe is separated from her family (namely her brother; we forget about poor old dad pretty quickly) was interesting in an homage to concentration camps kind of way…
But…
WHAT DIDN’T WORK:
This movie hardly left an impression on me. I’ll admit I’m writing this review a few weeks after having watching it, and I’m hard-pressed to find anything about it that I either liked or didn’t like. It was bland. Unimpressionable.
Chloe Grace Moretz didn’t hold her own in this film. She wasn’t all that interesting by herself, and the dude they paired her with just didn’t work. They didn’t have any chemistry together, and that’s a driving engine of a YA story, man. Big time.
Also unfortunate was the fact that they did absolutely nothing to justify the development of children soldiers. You have to toss us a bone on that, even if it’s a thin premise, you can’t just leave it unanswered why humanity’s entire fate is supposed to rest on the shoulders of a group of KIDS.
That’s all I really have to say about this one: it didn’t leave much of an impression. You don’t really care what’s happening either way.
4 out of 10 – bland YA fare that misunderstands what made “The Hunger Games” great: its heroine