“The 5th Wave” starts off strong as the main character Cassie, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, comes barreling through the woods and peaks the interest of the audience. The film continues this fast pace as the “Others” begin an alien-invasion that kills billions and leaves the world in a desolate new state. The Others have already attacked in four waves: an electromagnetic pulse, earthquakes and literal waves, disease carried by birds, and assassins called “Silencers.” These waves have killed almost every person on earth, and the remaining are left to wonder: “What’s the next wave?”
The film follows Cassie as she searches for her little brother Sammy who was taken away on a bus controlled by the military. While the film is very similar to the novel written by Rick Yancey, many key details are left out from the movie giving it a different feel. First, the novel is significantly more violent than portrayed in the film. While book-Cassie is continuously contemplating her humanity, who to trust, and if she should continue to live, movie-Cassie falls flat in comparison. Cassie is portrayed as a regular party girl who was head-over-heels in love with the most popular boy in school, Ben Parrish. I didn’t feel a connection to movie-Cassie, mainly due to her lack of growth and she’s not as strong as she is in the book. However, Moretz does a wonderful job with what she was given and plays a convincing lead.
There are no surprises in the movie version of “The 5th Wave,” while the book is filled with twists and turns that will make you audibly react. Even though Cassie and the rest of the survivors are living in an apocalyptic world, they are always well-groomed, and the other two remaining female characters never fail to have perfectly shaped hair and full faces of makeup, which doesn’t seem very convincing. Almost as if it is a formula for the young adult genre, Cassie is stuck in a forced love triangle with Ben and a perfectly groomed Evan Walker, whom she meets along the way. If you did’t read the book, the movie version of “The 5th Wave” isn’t disappointing and audiences are sure to be entertained while watching.
