Official Synopsis
Four waves of increasingly deadly alien attacks have left most of Earth decimated. Against a backdrop of fear and distrust, Cassie (Chloë Grace Moretz) is on the run, desperately trying to save her younger brother (Zackary Arthur). As she prepares for the inevitable and lethal fifth wave, Cassie teams up with a young man who may become her final hope – if she can only trust him.
Director J Blackeson put together a great beginning for a film. He created a healthy dose of suspense, some interesting characters to follow during an earth invasion and posed some situations that were going to make people’s lives hell on earth. Then he threw in some aliens called ‘the others’. What more could you want from the first act of an alien invasion film?
J Blakeson hit the right marks, as did writers Susannah Grant and Akiva Goldsman. The first act is about as good as you can get when it comes to setting up an alien invasion (see Independence Day for comparison). It’s thorough, quick and it creates an enormous sense of urgency. It really hooks you and does its best not to let go of you. You really are scared for the characters and are left in the dark wondering ‘what’s next’ just like the characters onscreen. Again, you could not start an alien invasion film out any better.
Then the rest happened.
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As the second act begins, things begin to calm down in the story. Our main character, Cassie (Chloë Grace Moretz), has to grow up quick and get her survival skills together. Her parents are gone, her situation to survive is dire and you just honestly don’t know if she is going to be tough enough to make it. In addition, she has to find her brother that was separated from her by the military. In addition to that, Cassie has to avoid getting killed by the hands of ‘the others’, who can cleverly hide and take control of their human hosts (see John Carpenter’s The Thing for details). While she is surviving and searching for her brother, Cassie’s love interest from high school, Ben Parish (Nick Robinson), who she hasn’t seen in forever, is running and gunning with the military, which is led by Colonel Vosch (Liev Schreiber), helping to take out ‘the others’. Two separate lives that intertwine in the third act.
While I can’t complain with its intention, the second act of The 5th Wave simply is uninteresting. While we know and love Cassie by this point in the film (she is a likable character), and her plight, her connection to high school sweetheart (or wannabe sweetheart) Ben isn’t at all believable. Why is this a problem? They’re destined to get together in the third act, but their lack of interaction in the first act (it is small) and Ben’s severe lack of development in general poses an emotional disconnect for the viewer. In short, you don’t care about him or his adventures, but the story forces you too.
If that wasn’t enough for the second act to be slightly broken in structure, or at least cracking, Cassie’s urgency to survive and find her brother simply turns into a bad episode of The Walking Dead. The story attempts to become slow and methodical with its build and push into the third act, but it unfortunately turns into just slow storytelling with no real beef of explanation added to the mix. I would love to say that the second act just simply takes its time, but honestly it just comes off as lost and somehow displaced from its path it established at the beginning. This is coming from a reviewer that never read the books from Rick Yancey, so take it with a grain of salt if you’re passionate about the story in print, as I’m just solely judging the film by itself(see my reviews for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for details).
As the second act transitions to the third, the action, suspense and thrill get amped up a bit. The big reveal of the film is shown, the intensity of the story goes into fifth gear and as the third act starts towards its conclusive path, you feel for the characters and their situation. Oh, what could have been, dear readers. The movie begins well, the movie ends well and that’s more than you can say for a lot of films these days (see Batman vs. Superman for example), but it can’t save itself from its second act flaws.
Honestly speaking, The 5th Wave deserved a bit more work in the middle. It needed more beef to the bone than it received. The second act of any film is pivotal to a film’s success. It’s the act that truly determines how the story flows and how much we care about the characters and their situation. It’s the reason a third act is impactful, memorable and emotional.
The 5th Wave simply felt like it skipped over the act and wanted to get to the last act where the action really turned up a notch. You can’t do that, you can’t ignore the middle act. Regretfully, the movie did and it simply wasn’t as impactful or sustainable with its story. Not the worst movie in the world, but it certainly isn’t good because it could have been so much better.
Maybe the next one will be better? I hope so because the story felt like it could be great.
As for the Blu-ray release, the transfer quality is actually quite good, which isn’t unexpected from the company that pushed the medium out to the world. Sony Pictures always does a healthy job of HD transfer, as they’re certainly in the top five studios when it comes to film to Blu-ray conversion. There is no sign of artifacts or color banding, and the film is dark, so the lack of latter is impressive. Overall, a good job from SPHE.
Film aside, the Blu-ray comes with some solid features. Here’s what you’re looking at with The 5th Wave:
– Commentary with Director J Blakeson and Chloë Grace Moretz
– Five Featurettes:
o “Inside The 5th Wave
o “Sammy on the Set”
o “The 5th Wave Survival Guide”
o “Training Squad 53”
o “Creating a New World”
– Cast Gag Reel
– Deleted Scenes
– Bonus sneak peek excerpt of The Last Star, by Rick Yancey
The featurettes are actually quite good. You get a great feel for what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish and get a great amount of instruction with the development of the movie. I like features that give you some clear vision of a film’s intention. It does add some value to the overall package.
As for the commentary, it’s solid. Love me some gag reel and the deleted scenes aren’t that bad (though, I can see why they were deleted).
Anyway, onto the summary.
