* * C
I was reading Nick Yancey’s NY Times Bestseller
“The 5th Wave” when I found out that the movie was already on sales. I’d read about half the book and it was decent, so I decided to check out the film. It was pretty well what I expected, and I’m not planning to finish reading the book, now that I know how it ends.
Chloë Grace Moretz (Hitgirl in Kickass) plays Cassie, who survives the first three waves of an alien invasion only to have her younger brother Sam taken by the army, who helpfully kill everyone else. Her high school crush Ben, played by Nick Robinson (Zack in Jurassic World) has been taken by the same army unit and is trained as a soldier along with Sam. Cassie is shot while trying to reach Sam, and nursed back to health by Evan, who accompanies her.
I won’t spoil it for you, but the fourth wave is revealed early on, and the fifth wave just before the climactic finale. If you’ve read much science fiction, you probably won’t be surprised by the twists the story takes. The movie dumbs down the story a lot, eliminates a lot of of the romance between Cassie and Evan, and makes some annoying changes, like replacing Sam’s bedtime prayer with a song. It also removes a couple of overly obvious clues to the big plot twist, which was an improvement over the book.
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