"The Fifth Wave" is an alien invasion movie without actually showing any aliens.
Chloe Grace Moretz plays Cassie, the determined Ohio teenager split up from her family after a giant space ship parks over her home and starts sending waves of death and destruction. In a matter of minutes, planet Earth is mostly wiped out by floods, bugs, birds and bad dialogue.
So what do the adults do? They round up the kids, train them with assault weapons, and send them out to kill other kids they think are aliens. It's all terribly odd and irresponsible.
"The Fifth Wave" borrows from every other successful franchise and, of course, features two handsome young men fighting not just for their lives, but for the favor of young Cassie who consistently goes into battle with perfect hair and make up.
If this franchise actually makes it to Part 2, young girls might be forced to choose between "Team Evan" or "Team Ben."
"The Fifth Wave" is based on the popular young adult book series by Rick Yancey. I haven't read the books, but I have seen the film, and it's a heavy-handed mess directed by J. Blakeson and produced by actor Tobey Maguire and legendary Texan Tim Headington.
Their film tries to say something about girl power or gun rights but the film is so disjointed it never earns the right to say anything.
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"The Fifth Wave" is rated PG-13 and isn't in the cinematic mid-level ballpark of "The Hunger Games" or even "The Maze Runner" series.
It's a big, bad, boring bottom-feeder and very typical of over-hyped films that arrive in theaters in late January.
