The 5th Wave (2015)

** out of ****

The critics ripped this one, but it's not all that bad.....

Chloe Grace Moretz is Cassie Sullivan, a normal teenager with a normal teenage life. She has parents she loves, a little brother, and a crush on a boy at school. But then one day there appears in the sky a monstrous UFO, which despite all hopes that they were peaceful, are here to take over the world. They do this in waves... first they decimated everything electronic or mechanical with an EMP, then attacked all coastal areas with massive tsunamis, and followed that up by a terrible virus so that now only about 1% of humanity is left alive. The 4^th wave started when the aliens appeared on earth to try to kill the survivors one-on-one.

Cassie's world is not a happy place.

I won't describe what “The 5^th Wave”s fifth wave actually is, since it is one of the major plot points that comes to light as the film progresses, but Cassie has lost track of her brother (Zachary Arthur) and is now obsessed with finding him and getting him to safety. Along the way she finds help in Evan (Alex Roe) and her old high school crush Ben (Nick Robinson), but more or less she is alone and just trying to survive.

Of course we all know how big post apocalyptic stories are these days, and I have always loved them ever since seeing “The Omega Man” (1971) when I was a kid. Some are terrific, some are terrible, most are in between. “The 5^th Wave” is one of the in-between ones.

I've made mention before on this blog about how I think Chloe Grace Moretz is the real thing – a fine actress with a long and celebrated future ahead of her. She makes the most here of what the script gives her, and does her usual bang-up job with it. The plot isn't the strongest, but that's kind of to be expected considering this is targeted at the teen audience and is based on a so-so teen novel. There's nothing really new to see, but it's a decent enough story with decent enough effects to keep you interested until the end.

And it's ending is set up for a sequel, but considering it's “barely broke even”receipts, there will never be one. And that's okay, since it isn't really good enough to justify one.

I watched it with my 11 year old son and he liked it, so if you ask me it was a success. For an adult it's a lot less interesting, but good enough to pass the time if you run across it on Superchannel one day.