The 5th Wave is a 2016 American science fiction action film directed by J Blakeson, with a screenplay by Susannah Grant, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner, based on Rick Yancey’s 2013 novel of the same name. The film stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff, Alex Roe, Maria Bello, Maika Monroe, and Liev Schreiber.
A colossal alien spaceship is circling Earth, guided by extraterrestrial life referred to as "The Others". Ten days later, The Others unleash their 1st Wave, an electromagnetic pulse that disables all electrical power and communications worldwide, and shuts off the engines of moving vehicles, including planes in mid-flight. The 2nd Wave has The Others manipulate the planet's geology and fault lines, causing earthquakes and megatsunamis that destroy coastal cities and islands, including Hallandale Beach, London, Bangkok and New York. In Ohio, Lake Erie floods, but Cassie and her younger brother Sam are able to survive by climbing a tree. For the 3rd Wave, The Others modify a strain of avian influenza and spread it across the planet via birds. The population is decimated, with Cassie's mother one of the victims. In the 4th wave, the Others possess common humans and start killing other humans.
Cassie, Sam and their father find a summer camp in use as a refuge in the woods with roughly 300 survivors. A few days later, an Army unit with working vehicles rolls into the camp. The unit's commander, Colonel Vosch, claims there is an imminent threat of a 5th Wave and they will take the children to safety at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, intending to bring the buses back to retrieve the adults. Cassie is separated from Sam, and witnesses the Army massacring all the adults, her father included. Cassie makes her way toward the base, but is shot in the leg by a sniper and passes out. About a week later, she wakes up in the farmhouse of a young man named Evan Walker, who saved her. Cassie leaves towards the base with Evan, but learns that he is an Other, sent years ago as a sleeper agent and merged his consciousness into a human host. The sleepers roam their designated zones, killing human survivors. Evan admits his humanity was reactivated when he saw her, disagrees with the invasion and lets her leave. He warns that Colonel Vosch and the military are possessed by the consciousness of individual Others.
At the base, the military have used deception and technology to convince the rescued children that the humans outside the base have been possessed. They provide military training to the children, forming them into squads to go on kill missions outside the base. Sam has been placed into a squad led by Ben, a boy Cassie had a crush on, along with Ringer, a tough teenage girl, Dumbo and Teacup. While out on a kill mission, Ringer removes her military implant, causing her to register as an Other-possessed human on the squad's scopes. The squad deduces the plan to have them kill real unpossessed humans, making them the 5th Wave. Ben sends his squad into the woods and returns to base, claiming his squad was killed, for the purpose of retrieving Sam, who was left behind. Ben confronts Colonel Vosch about child warriors being the 5th Wave and Cassie kills Sergeant Reznik during her one-on-one indoctrination spiel. Ben and Cassie find each other and leave to find Sam. Evan sets off numerous bombs and advises them to quickly find Sam before the destruction of the entire facility. Colonel Vosch and the surviving military Others evacuate with the human children by military aircraft. Cassie, Ben and Sam escape, with help from Ringer, just as Evan completes the destruction of
Casting
- Chloë Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan
- Nick Robinson as Ben Thomas Parish
- Ron Livingston as Oliver Sullivan
- Maggie Siff as Lisa Sullivan
- Alex Roe as Evan Walker
- Maria Bello as Sergeant Reznik
- Maika Monroe as Ringer
- Zackary Arthur as Sam Sullivan
- Liev Schreiber as Colonel Alexander Vosch
- Tony Revolori as Dumbo
- Talitha Bateman as Teacup
- Nadji Jeter as Poundcake
- Alex MacNicoll as Flintstone
- Parker Wierling as Jeremy
In March 2012, Columbia Pictures picked up the film rights to the trilogy, with Graham King and Tobey Maguire attached as producers. On April 15, 2014, it was officially announced that Chloë Grace Moretz would star as Cassie Sullivan, and that J Blakeson would direct from a script by Susannah Grant. From June through August 2014, Nick Robinson and Alex Roe joined the film as male protagonists Ben Parish and Evan Walker, respectively, while Liev Schreiber was cast as the villain. Over the following months, Maika Monroe, Zackary Arthur, Tony Revolori, Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff, and Talitha Bateman joined the film.
Principal photography began on October 18, 2014, in Atlanta, Georgia. Three months later, on January 11, a planned explosion of a bus in downtown Macon, Georgia for the film went awry when it spread wider than planned, blowing out more than forty windows on Cotton Avenue, collapsing ceilings, destroying store fronts, setting one building on fire, and leaving soot on the brick buildings as well. The production company promised to cover all damages caused by the 3:45 am incident, but the work that was done was done badly and remained incomplete twenty-eight months later.
Livett's Launches provided filming support for the scene showing the destruction of Tower Bridge by a tsunami.
Filming officially ended on January 17, 2015.
The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 15% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 137 reviews, with an average rating of 4.22/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "With unimpressive effects and plot points seemingly pieced together from previous dystopian YA sci-fi films, The 5th Wave ends up feeling like more of a limp, derivative wriggle." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 33 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.
Jeffrey M. Anderson of The San Francisco Examiner said of the film, "Every plot turn and every line of dialogue has been borrowed from somewhere else, and everything is utterly, totally predictable", noting how the film "steals material from (but does not stop at) the Twilight, Hunger Games and Divergent franchises." Anthony Lane of The New Yorker faulted the film as a "marketing wheeze dressed up as an art form, and stupendously summarized by the image of Cassie hurrying through the woods carrying both an assault rifle and a Teddy bear", adding that the film "appears to have been designed by some crazed Oedipal wing of the N.R.A."
Rob Vaux of the Sci-Fi Movie Page gave the film one star out of five, saying, "The Young Adult adaptation craze hits a low point with this aimless, purposeless alien invasion story that wastes a fine cast."[unreliable source?] In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle wrote, "rarely does a movie that fails so utterly start so well", falling apart ahead of the fifth wave. As to a possible trilogy, "if we’re not really vigilant, and look to the skies, and prepare, they’re going to make at least two more of these things. We’ve got to beat back the invasion now". Eddie Cockrell of Variety gave the film a mixed review, saying, "The 5th Wave is an effectively decent post-apocalyptic, young adult, world-in-the-balance survival thriller" with an "arrestingly original spin on trendy genre tropes", although he suggested that fans of the book may have "issues with what has been edited".
Brian Truitt of USA Today gave the film a positive review, stating that it "is an inviting sci-fi invasion" and "nicely stokes the imagination of a new generation of science-fiction movie nerds". He praised Moretz and Robinson as "equally strong" co-leads. Shannon Harvey of The West Australian also gave the film a positive review, writing, "It’s actually got a lot going for it, from acting prodigy Chloe Grace Moretz as the kind of tough but fragile heroine you can cheer for to handsome production values, several plot twists". Michael Patterson of Moviepilot gave the film a positive review, calling it a "thrilling story of survival".
