Aliens, mystery, and love triangles are renowned plots that often make a movie successful. Yet, The 5th Wave involved all of them, and still was overall a disappointment.

The film was directed by Jonathan “J” Blakeson, who is recognized for his feature film, The Disappearance of Alice Creed. Blakeson had taken on the task of adapting the story from the book, The Fifth Wave which was written by Rick Yancey. The book is the first installment of a trilogy, yet it is unclear if the remaining books will be adapted into films also.

In addition, the movie does not follow the original story completely. Some important factors are altered or completely left out. Moreover, certain events were depicted differently in the film and the novel, and some parts of the story were merely looked over.

The film begins with Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz) quickly immersing herself in the new, dangerous, and unsettling world. She is alone, and has learned to fend for herself. In the opening scene, she is face to face with a stranger who begs for his life. She is confronted with the decision to trust the man, or trust herself. In this exciting scene, the audience gets a quick taste of how mistrustful the remaining humans have become.

The movie quickly lapses back in time, and begins to explain her circumstances. The audience is introduced to Cassie’s family, most importantly her little brother Sammy. The two share a bond, and Cassie considers herself his protector. Both are living an ordinary life when the Others (aliens) arrive on mother Earth.

The Waves (or attacks) are caused by the others, who seek the Earth’s natural resources and benefits. There are five waves in total, but the first four are the most deadly. The first wave shut off all technology, the next wave initiates a massive earthquake that shook the whole world. The following wave unleashes disease, which kills off more than half of the remaining population on Earth. The last wave let the others embody humans, and walk among the genuine human race. The fifth wave is kept a mystery for a majority of the film, and the remaining humans are preparing for the battle against them.

They inevitably steal away Sammy, and Cassie is left alone on a planet where no one can be trusted. She seeks out to find her little brother, and learns to overcome obstacles that seem life threatening.

The 5th Wave starts out promising, and the audiences interests gradually dwindle away. The story lacks focus, and skips around on various occasions. In addition, the dialogue was poor, and kept the audience uninterested. The dialogue lacked personality and life. Characters were never given the opportunity to develop, and the story never truly went anywhere. The whole story focuses on the undetermined outcome of the fifth wave, and builds up to it. Yet when the time arises for a climax to take place, it is unsatisfying, and everything the film built itself up to be was a foogazee.

The plot appeared to be interesting, but the lack of depth and predictability of the film is where the movie fails In addition, the bad acting within the film also portrayed the story line poorly. Big name actors such as Mortez, and Liev Schreiber (who played the commander of the army) were onscreen disappointments. Their scenes were either overly dramatic or unbearably boring. Likewise, the special effects were dull and practically nonexistent throughout the course of the film.

Sadly, most factors of the movie were overall misses. The audience often couldn’t help laughing at the seemingly ridiculous actors or scenarios that the characters were placed in. Although the movie was intended to be taken seriously, it was nearly impossible. The movies left the audience with confusion and angst towards the resolution of the film, and truly never tied off any lose ends. Hopefully the next time aliens nearly take over the world in cinematography, movie producers will actually tell you if they win or not.