Director: J Blakeson
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 112 minutes
The 5th Wave (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Movies that revolve around the end of the world are quite common and often they entail the same formula, namely a zombie virus, outbreaks of other viruses, a nuclear holocaust or even alien invaders. The 5th Wave will revolve around an alien presence that has come to claim the Earth as its own, albeit with the help of ‘mother nature’. While this start of a trilogy received rather bad reviews when it was being played in the theatres, we honestly don’t know why. An invisible enemy hides in plain sight and there is nothing we can do.
Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a rather normal and average girl, trying to get through high school as best as she can. While overcoming normal day-to-day problems which are quite common for teenagers, she has a loving family to fall back on, as she is quite content with her father Oliver (Ron Livingston), her mother Lisa (Maggie Siff) and her little brother Sam (Zackary Arthur). Even though life trots on at a steady pace, things have turned into a scenario fit for a sci-fi movie when all of a sudden an alien vessel started orbiting Earth. While the vessel has been nonresponsive for weeks, all of a sudden the alien invaders start showing their true colors. With an EMP that causes the electricity to shut down all over the globe, earthquakes to immediately wipe out many of Earth’s inhabitants and an altered version of the bird flu, the human population immediately dwindles. When the remaining inhabitants of our blue planet are confronted with the fact that the aliens, now known as ‘The Others’, can take over human hosts, without showing any visible signs of doing so, a sense of panic immediately hits the air. This last piece of news is brought by Colonel Vosch (Liev Schreiber), who rounds up all the adults in the ‘headquarters’ of a makeshift survivor camp, while all of the children are hauled off to the nearest military base. Cassie goes back to get Sam’s bear, but the bus with children already left and she couldn’t have imagined what she was about to see, namely the ‘slaughter’ of all the adults in the camp, after panic broke loose.
While trying to survive Cassie is determined to reunite with Sam, even though the base is more than a hundred miles walking distance. While survival is already hard to do, it’s even harder when you can’t trust a single living being anymore. After Cassie gets shot in the middle of her journey, things seem to be heading south. Meanwhile, all of the children are being drafted to fight the Others, even though it’s clear that not everything is what is seems or that not everyone is who he seems.
The 5th Wave cuts to the chase immediately and makes sure you will have the information you need to get through the movie. After the first thirty minutes of the movie you’ll be treated to a constant flow of action and tension, which makes this movie a very interesting experience. While the ending is perhaps a bit rubbish, if this was a standalone movie, the unconfirmed sequel will hopefully shed some light on certain choices and events that transpired towards the end of this movie.
Acting performances are quite formidable but it’s easy to say that Chloë’s stellar performance singlehandedly carries this movie from start to finish. She has come a long way since her twisted yet adorable appearance in Kick-Ass. Nonetheless, Liev plays his role as the last ‘military’ leader quite well, all while the rest of the children show a proper transition from carefree children towards full-fledged soldiers. This series does have the capability of launching several of the younger actors and actresses’ careers if the following movies are marketed properly.
This Blu-ray release comes with the many typical special features you’d expect from a movie such as this, such as the standardized gag reel, deleted scenes and commentaries. That being said, there are also those you’ll surely enjoy, such as a short but powerful survival guide, some information on how the children were ‘trained’ to become soldiers and a small topical piece about the effects, that certain items were actually done with CGI rather than with actual props. Last but not least, there is also a small adorable feature about the youngest cast member, Zackary, who is also interested in filmmaking, and thus he asks many of the different crewmembers what they do in order to wrap up a movie as best as they can.
Conclusion
The 5th Wave is an interesting first part of a trilogy of movies, and while the second part hasn’t been confirmed just yet, this series holds a lot of potential. While the current ending might be a bit too open and silly if this would be a standalone flick, there’s still a lot of content to handle. That being said, even if the rest of the movies never hit the theatres, this movie is definitely worth the watch.
The 5th Wave (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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