This review will include spoilers for the book The 5th Wave. It's an incredible book that I recommend you read!
Hey guys! I've been meaning to write this review since I saw it so many months ago in the cinema. I was so excited for the film and I thought the trailer looked amazing and so promising. Initially, when I left the cinema I thought that it had been a success - I loved it! However after seeing it again and having so long to really look back on it...I don't think it's as good as I thought.
All opinions here are my own, so please don't hate on it.
Anyone who has read the book will know the synopses for the movie; aliens have invaded Earth and are taking over by unleashing 'waves' amongst mankind. Each wave progressively getting worse and wiping out more and more people. After the death of Cassie's parents, her younger brother Sam is taken away to a safety camp, only to be discovered to be run by the aliens. Cassie goes out to find him, but by doing so she runs into the gorgeous Evan Walker who helps her with her plan.
Loads of other stuff happens, including the perfect Ben Parish and his rebellion and all that jazz. You know the stuff if you're reading this. I firstly want to approach the positives I have with this movie. The main one being the casting (most of the time). I fell in love with Chloe Grace Moretz in one of my all time favourite movies - Kick-Ass. Her acting in everything is exceptional and she makes no exception in this movie either. She was a fan favourite to play Cassie and she didn't disappoint; she perfectly captured the determination and love she had for finding her brother whilst also still being a normal teenage girl. When reading the book, I always thought Cassie to be one of the most relatable heroines ever, and although it wasn't to the same extreme in the movie as the book for me, it was still pretty damn good. I also loved the casting of Nick Robinson as Ben Parish. After finding him dreamy and lovely in Jurassic World, I was super happy with the casting of him as our charming and endearing Parish. The final (main) character I was uber happy with was Zachary Arthur as Sammy; I'm usually very sceptical of child actors, often finding them to be really annoying but not this guy. I actually found myself sympathising with him and thought he did a great job of presenting the innocence and vulnerability of the children during the tragic times.
I'm unsure of the casting of Alex Roe. I think he's physically perfect and he also had the capability to act, however I don't know if it was him or the directors but I don't think they captured the personality of Evan right. He is a difficult character to play as he has several intricate characteristics. One minute he's manly and intimidating, the next he's vulnerable and shy. Most importantly, however, is his adorable awkwardness around Cassie which was a huge loss in the movie that was hilarious in the book and gave the audience an enormous step with loving the relationship of Cassie and Evan. In the book, for me, there isn't a lot of romance. It's so well laced with the desperation of reaching Sam and the fear of the new world. However, in the movie it's so heavily, and badly romanced that it ruined the chemistry between Cassie and Evan for me and just made the entire second half of the movie a cringe-fest. I was surprised to see the casting of Reznik being female. I had no issue of this initially however when watching the movie I didn't find her to be intimidating or scary enough so the entire threat that Ben was put under was completely lost. I also thought her wearing bright red lipstick was stupid. Like, why? My last complaint about casting was Maika Monroe. I thought the actress was great and everything but similarly to Evan, I think the interpretation of Ringer was wrong somehow. I mean, when reading the book, I never envisioned her to be this emo chick who's just super moody. She has a serious backstory and is the only one who's sceptical about everything.
Another positive I had with the movie was that it had a higher age rating. Something that had always troubled me was books aimed at young adults/adults being made into movies for young teens and kids. However, I thought that this could have been embraced more with more bad language (I remember Cassie swearing a lot more) and more violence. I thought the first half of the film was actually quite strong. The explanation of the waves was done well and I also found the shooting of the crucifix man to be quite potent. However, when the sloppy romance and the story of Ben Parish at the camp was introduced, I thought the film started to become messy and unfortunately...boring. There was no eerie threat that I felt when reading the book. There wasn't even a great balance between seriousness and humour like other films similar often have. This is necessary in order for the audience to favour characters. I felt everyone lacked so much life and character which kind of made the film feel deflated in comparison to the book. I'm aware that it's so difficult for movies to be an accurate portrayal of a book as it can't include all the detail in a short time frame. However I feel if this is the case, don't bother making a movie as it just leaves us fans disappointed. I'd love to know your thoughts on this film, whether you did or didn't enjoy it and why below!
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Hannah
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