Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *
Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Liev Schreiber, Gabriela Lopez, Bailey Anne Borders, Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff, Zackery Arthur, Dave Maldonado, Paul Ryden, Charmin Lee, Parker Wierling, Tony Revolori, Terry Serpico, Derek Roberts, Maria Bello, Cade Cannon Ball, Alex MacNicoll, Nadij Jeter, Maika Monroe, Flynn McHugh, Alex Roe, Matthew Zuk.
There are some films that offer so much on paper that once seen you cannot understand how it was possible to be regarded as such a let-down as a cinematic experience. Such is the twisted fate of The Fifth Wave, such is the divine introspection available to all when viewing something that arguably would have worked better as a television special spread over three nights.
It is hard for any audience member to get enthused about a film that feels as though it is selling itself short, that is too reliant on a visual aspect that is in itself a failing gimmick and whilst the touches of alien devastation, the tsunamis that wreck the coastal cities are considerable, they are not what an audience should expect when being asked to believe that the world is under threat; films with less intrinsic value have done more with less.
Even the idea of alien invasion is only really seized upon as a nod to the likes of films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and even Faculty or television programmes such as the impressive V, if anything the film seems to capture the essence of the blinding rage that sits at the heart of McCarthyism, of the spectre that haunts 1950s American social history. Alien invasion is all well and good, it is in the heart of Science Fiction, however when it asks the cinema audience to see that assault as a division between political ideology then it strays too far out of entertaining, perhaps enlightening, the viewer and instead starts to install an offence and mistrust.
Chloë Grace Moretz will no doubt be one of America’s most treasured screen performers in the years ahead, she has passion, verve and confidence by the bucket load, the only problem is in The Fifth Wave she loses out to Maika Monroe in terms of believability, the whole knock on effect of losing someone and the inner steel it places in the heart, more easily framed by Ms. Monroe than Ms. Moretz.
The Fifth Wave will undoubtedly start the ball rolling in teenage alien stories, grabbing the attention in such a way that Twilight did for the vampire genre, yet teenagers are more adept, more thoughtful than this film gives them credit for; some nice touches but a film that could have easily been better if allowed to breathe away from the political ideology arguably being thrust down the throat.
Ian D. Hall