User reviews

We had The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, St Elmo's Fire, The Goonies to name but a few. Defining moments in movies, defining teenage angst, growing pains and young love and loves lost. Films that stand up today, not just for nostalgia's sake but because of solid acting, amazing characters and good stories.

I despair for the drivel that our millennial's have to endure today in the name of cinema. If you've grown up on good films through the years then you want to avoid The Fifth Wave. Encourage your young-lings to watch something else.

Chloe maybe a good actress, but she couldn't drag the film from the mire of this cliché driven plot line with shallow characters and an awfully banal story of an alien plot to take over the Earth in as seemingly clueless manner as possible.

Saw 'The 5th Wave' because the concept was a good one, there was interest in how survival, alien invasion and teenage romance would work together and because there is talent in the cast. Was determined not to let my apprehension, as to whether 'The 5th Wave' would execute its good concept well (having seen so many potential wastes recently), get the better of me.

It is a shame that after genuinely wanting to like it, not with the intention to hate it or want to, that 'The 5th Wave' was yet another potential waste, executing its good idea very ordinarily. Not one of the worst cases but one of the most infuriating ones, not irredeemably awful but the cons outweigh the pros and the cons are hardly big in size. It is not that it didn't try, to me it tried too hard, executing its elements underwhelmingly and they just don't go together.

There are a few good things. Chloe Grace Moretz gives it everything, a very committed performance and comes off well compared to everything else. In fact, a good deal of the cast are game.

Production design has some atmosphere and while the effects are variable a few are above so-so, credit is due for not overusing and abusing them that it became a CGI-fest. The start does intrigue.

Conversely, the camera work and editing were wanting, being far too drab and hasty-looking rather than dynamic. Other effects are artificial-looking. The direction showed someone not at ease with the material and one finding it difficult to control it. While Moretz and the lead cast are game, the children are inept.

The dialogue is clunky and excessively cheesy, particularly in the teenage/romantic scenes. It was the story execution that was particularly underwhelming about 'The 5th Wave'. There was not enough at stake for the survival/end-of-the-world element to work, it was too predictable, a lot could be seen from a mile away, and urgency and tension were missing. The alien-invasion parts suffered from a lack of thrills, no suspense and less than menacing villains. The teenage/romantic elements are just awkward and bog the film down, placed inappropriately at times too.

On top of neither element being executed well, they don't go well together, coming over as a muddled jumble of tones and cobbled together storytelling, with every recycled, fatigued cliché imaginable with nothing new done with either. The twists were obvious and didn't really feel like twists, the big one not excepted. The characters were generally bland with their development at best sketchy. The ending is sheer nonsense and impossible to take seriously. Also have felt that open-ended ones hinting at a follow-up are rather risky in case that falls through, watching 'The 5th Wave' did nothing to change my mind on this.

In conclusion, not awful but there are a lot of issues here. 3/10 Bethany Cox

The 5th Wave (2016) is a movie I was obsessed with while I was at college and I would constantly rewatch it so many times that I have lost track of how many times I've watched it and I cover it. Now as an adult, this is one of those movies where you start to notice all of the major problems with it and yet I still find myself having some dumb fun.

Positives for The 5th Wave (2016): This is one of those movies that would be viewed as delicious garbage. There is so much wrong with the movie and yet I can still have fun watching and laughing at the stupidity on screen. The movie has a surprisingly stacked cast including Chloe Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Alex Roe, Maria Bello, Maika Monroe, Zackary Arthur, Liev Schreiber, Tony Revolori, Talitha Bateman and Nadji Jeter. They all do a fine job with what they have to work with. There is a decent shootout during one scene that was mildy entertaining. The movie has a good pace and I wasn't even bored for one second throughout the entire movie. And finally, this is the type of movie you need to turn your brain off so that you can enjoy it.

Negatives for The 5th Wave (2016): This movie is desperately trying to become a major young adult franchise and yet it feels like a young adult movie that I have seen many times before. I find it hilarious that everyone in the young cast looks clean and well groomed despite this movie taking place during an apocalypse. The movie tries to make Maika Monroe look like a badass and it just doesn't work and it's not that she can't play a badass, but Sony Pictures was trying way too hard. The CGI looks hilariously bad with the waves and the explosion at the end. The plot twist regarding the aliens is so painfully obvious that it is hilarious to watch. And finally, the movie ends on a note that tries to set up a possible franchise except Sony Pictures failed and it blew up in their faces.

Overall, The 5th Wave (2016) is a movies that I used to love, but t have to admit that it sucks and yet I would still have fun watching the movie.

Wow! That was complete and utter rubbish. Can we please have it listed under genres as Teen Romance / Brain Rot and not under the genre Sci-fi, Action, Adventure as it is listed above. Are teenagers these days all goldfish???, is this not the same plot as Twilight, Divergence etc only replace vampires etc. with Aliens?. I love my apocalyptic movies and after the first 20 minutes I thought it wasn't going so bad... decent special effects, seeing what each "wave" was going to do and I was looking forward to seeing "the others", but alas that was it for the movie after that it was like opening a teen magazine while jamming a skewer up my nose in to my brain.

I must say I did get a few laughs at the many clichés I called before they happened followed by my swift exit to save my brain from rotting by the absurd stupidity of it all. If you are not a girl aged 11 to 15 avoid this movie like you would avoid the plague

Rating it a 7 because it totally kept my attention. However, this could have been a 9. The first 30 minutes are really good. They really should have kept down that serious adult track. Unfortunately it became a teen movie. It's like running a marathon and gassing out after mile 8. They should have kept it adult level, but rather it got a little cheesy making it a kid-level PG-ish feel. All that being said, there was still enough to keep my attention to finish up and I didn't regret my 2-hour investment.

So this basically reminded me of Red Dawn. But I enjoyed it more. For me, Chloe carried the film. And they mix it up enough with action, adventure, and romance. To keep you entertained long enough.

I'm glad they didn't drag out the movie, but disappointed they aren't going to make the other 2 films related to the other books.

As a low-budget sci-fi flick, The Fifth Wave starts quite promisingly with a more logical continuation from the opening scenes of "Independence Day". The end of the world is nigh. An alien spacecraft has put itself into a threatening earth orbit (note: actually 'orbiting' - as a nod to science guys like me - rather than just inexplicably hanging there in the sky, as Douglas Adams once put it, "in much the same way that bricks don't").

The aliens are throwing calamity after calamity down at small-town America in 'waves': earthquakes; tidal surges; modified bird flu; and bombings.

Against this stressful backdrop, the ever-reliable Chloe Grace-Moretz ("Kick Ass"; "Let the Right One In") plays Cassie who after getting separated from her younger brother Sam (Zackery Arthur) faces the dangers of a cross-country Alabama trek to rescue him.

Like I said, quite a promising premise, and it flows quite nicely until the family get to a Fort Wilderness style sanctuary in the forest. There however the plot goes awry, with the aliens making a seemingly ridiculous strategic move.

Jaw-dropping dumbness now follows with a 'see-it-coming-from-a-mile-away' plot-twist casting Cassie onto her solo-mission, and the film declines into a rather poor 'Hunger-maze-giance' wannabe with Cassie torn between the affections of old crush Ben (Nick "Jurassic World" Robinson) and mysterious saviour Evan (Alex Roe). Much muscle-rippling and skinny-dipping ensues as Cassie oohs and aahs in a girlie fashion that erodes her kick-ass (no pun intended) characterization to date.

The director is J Blakeson.... no, me neither. This is only his second feature, and is a big ask.

The film rather obviously cues up a sequel: this is the first of a series of – apparently quite good – books by Rick Yancey, with the next in the series being called "The Infinite Sea". I don't think I will be rushing to the cinema to see the sequel, if it does happen.

A disappointing film that starts with real promise but then loses its way. Grace-Moretz really does deserve better. Nice animated Gif poster though!.

(Please visit http://bob-the-movie-man.com for the graphical version of this review, and to comment with your thoughts. Thanks).

I mean seriously, why is everyone attempting to be a professional critic with such high standards for every movie made?! This movie was entertaining and followed pretty closely to the book and yet still getting such bad reviews! Why? For the one person saying they won't take their kid bc they don't want their kid to think its okay to get implanted with a microchip. Are you kidding? You know this is a movie about an alien invasion right? Not exactly a guide to how to live your life under normal circumstances. You don't want your kids wielding guns? AGAIN, ALIEN INVASION! It's not like this is teaching your kids to have guns during all situations. get a grip, this is a movie.. Chill out.

This film tells the story of a young girl who fights to survive and to reunite with her brother, after mysterious alien attacks on Earth by various methods.

"The 5th Wave" is a bit different from other alien attach films because there is no widespread battles in urban areas. There is not even an alien looking creature in sight! That keeps mystery alive and suspense going. The first few waves unfold quite quickly, and the fifth wave takes time to develop. Just when things seem to be a certain way, there are multiple plot twists happening together which makes the film even more interesting. The guy playing Evan Walker is very handsome, I hope to see more of him in future films. Another good thing is that "The 5th Wave" is not preachy at all, unlike a similar recent film "Tomorrowland". I enjoyed watching "The 5th Wave".

How many of these young adult fiction books are there? Over the past few years we've had a plethora of books made into movies like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent and Twilight along with their sequels. As long as they make money at the box office, Hollywood shall continue to make them. Another adaptation in the long line of young adult fiction is The 5th Wave which starts off promisingly but then becomes another generic teenage film with a romance subplot and unconvincing action scenes.

Cassie Sullivan (Chloe Grace Moretz) is just a normal teenage girl living happily in Ohio with her father (Ron Livingston), mother (Maggie Siff) and brother, Sam (Zackary Arthur). Their lives change when aliens invade Earth. The aliens inflict wave after wave of attack: the 1st wave refers to electromagnetic pulses being disabled resulting in a loss of communication and transportation; the 2nd wave is a flurry of natural disasters; the 3rd wave is an airborne deadly virus transmitted by birds; the 4th wave is the alien species inhabiting humans like parasites; the 5th wave is alien domination. The adults are separated from the children and the US army led by Colonel Vosch (Liev Schreiber) is taking control of the situation, placing children in quarantine so they can assist in fighting the alien species. Cassie finds herself isolated from her peers and must fight her own battles.

The plot is tense and exciting but that's just for the first half an hour. Once the children have been separated from the adults, things become a bit stale. It doesn't help when there's sizable plot holes throughout the movie. The story then drifts off into a romantic subplot which was just as boring as the Twilight series. When the children are trained to fight the aliens, there's a sense that all excitement has dissipated. If the focus was on Cassie fighting her own battles and trying to find her brother then it would have made for a more exciting movie.

The director is J Blakeson and this is his second directorial effort after The Disappearance of Alice Creed in 2009. It might be another seven years until he is employed again for he has some learning to do. Some of those close-up shots of the actors with their foreheads not in the frame were annoying and several of the fight scenes were difficult to see as they were filmed in natural lighting at night!

Chloe Grace Moretz is developing into a terrific actress if she hasn't reached that level already. She is convincing as the teenager who must make her own decisions when her family is no longer around to support her. The two actors who play her love interests, Nick Robinson and Alex Roe, are both devilishly handsome but their roles could be played by any young, unknown Hollywood heartthrob. Liev Schreiber adds integrity to the production and can always be relied upon to hold the fort in the acting stakes.

There are quite a few clever ideas in this film but the execution could have been much better. If you're a fan of young adult fiction, you won't be too disappointed but for people who have seen many movies, there's nothing new which will cause you to leap for joy. The story sticks pretty much to the generic formula and doesn't reach any great heights. http://mlaimlai2.wix.com/magical-movie-review

For the first time i am writing a review for a movie. If you are not under 15 years old you should stay away from this movie because its just a really bad movie with some visual effects. The movie was looking good at first 10 minutes but after that everything in the movie started to seems stupid. Ending scene was the worst part of it. Scenario and most of the scenes in the movie is just disaster.

The 5th Wave is based on the book of the same name and it's main focus is on a girl reconnecting with her brother. It's a tried and true story for the post-apocalyptic genre and doesn't do anything really cool with it except for the title. The title of the film plays into the "twist" in the film, if you can even call it that and it's about the only thing that it does a little differently.

Nothing too bad on the acting side. There's no Oscar winning performances but everybody does a decent job with the crap dialogue they are given. Except the kid... He just stares all the time, looking dumbfounded. Must have been a way to keep people from calling him "The annoying kid."

The film looks good in it's presentation. The choreography in the fight scenes is a bit exaggerated but I enjoyed that. What is does so wrong is the absolute straight 'teen angst novel' scenes and relationships. The books suffered from this too and I feel it could have been made to be a bit more serious to kind of adult up the series and make it fit with a wider audience.

Overall it is a bad adaption of an average book. It alienates everyone over the age of 12 by making it way too much like the novel and not trying to change up some of the things it needed to.

Was this written by a 23 Nicholas Sparks? teenage angst, boyfriend troubles and anti government paranoia abound in this major mess of a movie. You'll love it if you are a love lorn 15 yr old blond girl.Otherwise avoidit like an alien invasion. esp the clumsy contrived ex machina twist at the end.

The 5th Wave has received very mixed reviews so I went into it prepared for it to be terrible. In places it is pretty bad but there is also a lot to like about it. Chloe Grace-Moretz and Nick Robinson are very good and their characters (although not particularly deep) are very likable, probably thanks to the actors. The first 30 minutes was very entertaining although at times it felt a little rushed. Maybe this would have worked well as a TV series. Anyway after a particularly interesting plot twist at the half hour mark the film's pace completely grinds to a halt and becomes a soppy teen romance like Twilight for the middle portion of the film. And suddenly Grace-Moretz's character becomes the least interesting thing in the film for a while. Nick Robinson then has to carry the film for half an hour which he just about manages in spite of an endless 'wave' of movie clichés (think Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent etc) that come thick and fast. There are also a number of long scenes filmed in the dark where it's really difficult to see anything. At times it's like listening to a radio play because you can't see much at all. Towards the end the tension ramps up nicely in a few places, so even though it looks like there wasn't much of a budget (some scenes look horribly cheap) the director did get me on the edge of my seat. I haven't read the novel that this is based on but you can tell that the source material is good because there are some decent surprises here. Liev Shrieber adds weight to every scene he is in even though he doesn't have lots to do.

Overall I think this could have been better received if 20 minutes in the middle had been chopped out along with some of the tiresome clichés that blight these types of movies. But those twenty minutes or so (and the clichés) that I disliked were clearly aimed at the teenage girl demographic rather than sci-fi and action fans. If a sequel does get commissioned I would probably watch it because I did enjoy this more than any of the Hunger Games movies (I'm probably in a minority there though) and it was better than all bar the first Twilight movie. This film is worth your time unless you really can't stand the teen romance parts.

Speaking of waves.... you know that so called 'teenagers survive doomsday and fights against a dystopian armegeddon' wave of movies and books? Just another entry into the Maze Runner, Divergent, Hunger Games, The Host.... wave.

anyways Cassie is a survivalist teenager returning to her little brother who has been drafted to fight the so called 5th wave of an Alien invasion.

This is an entertaining film, even though it's pretty much silly and makes no sense. This film is about the end of the world, I guess, or maybe it's about keeping humanity in a silly crisis. I hope aliens are this stupid if they come to kill us all.

When I was watching the film I focused more on the characters in the film rather than the whole story. After watching it, sort of like a dream, I realized how silly it was. Yes, it's ridiculous, it's extremely bad on logic.

But that didn't stop me from enjoying it. The acting is good, the message is good, but if you're looking for a well thought out story that doesn't leave gaping plot holes and doesn't make you ask questions why are they doing this when they're all powerful kind of thing... just don't bother watching it. Guaranteed most of these people rated Avengers a 10 and this a 1.

This movie is just an absolute mess. i would not recommend this to anyone unless you plan on wasting 2 hours of your life. This is one of those movies where i really just wanted to turn it off, not even 30 minutes into it.