★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆
Very recently I referred to Quentin Tarantino’s current
method of film-making as ‘by-the-numbers’. Well, allow me to humbly beg your
forgiveness Quentin, in light of The 5th
Wave, a movie so clammily uniform it views like a flow chart.
Stop me if any of these sound familiar: feisty teenage
heroine? Dystopian future? Younger sibling in need of protection, calmed by a
lullaby? Love triangle? Manipulation of children? If you thought the young
adult genre had already passed its prime with the second Divergent, you’d be right. There is not a single thing in this
formula that we haven’t seen performed elsewhere, and – crucially – better.
We enter the fray with our lead, Cassie (Chlöe Grace Moretz),
on the run. She’s been separated from her younger brother: an alien invasion has
wiped out a decent chunk of mankind in a series of attacks known as ‘waves’,
and surviving children have been rounded up by the armed forces in a last-ditch
attempt to fight back. All is explained to us via a customary voiceover from
our protagonist. It feels a lifetime ago that The Hunger Games first showed the genre how to handle character introductions:
haunting imagery, beautifully composed music and superior production design trumps
stilted narration any day.
I’ve had a great fondness for Moretz since her barn-storming
turn back in Kick-Ass, and I sense
she’s been after a role that showcases her true prowess for a long time. Alas,
Cassie is a bore. Proving her independence very early on, she is thereafter relegated
to being rescued time and again by hunky hick Evan (Alex Roe) and high-school
crush Ben (Nick Robinson). “No sexist or demeaning comments!” shrieks emo-eyed
army recruit Ringer (Maika Monroe), the camera gazing laddishly at her backside
as Cassie goes weak-kneed at the sight of Evan splashing his torso with lake water.
Moretz’ dwindling magnetism aside, the only recognisable
talent to guide us is a visibly snoozing Liev ‘please see me in Spotlight instead’ Schreiber. He and
Robinson form the more intriguing of the lacklustre story threads, but any
investment is rapidly erased by the risible dialogue and stale-faced acting.
With slack enthusiasm for anyone to make it out alive, the manifold
issues with the narrative emerge in droves: if the aliens (or ‘Others’, because
it’s YA fiction and nothing can have a normal name) want rid of humanity, why the
incessant fiddling around? Why is the ‘big reveal’ getting such a massive build-up
when it’s signposted with blinding neon flares? Almost as flimsy as the plot
are the special effects: planes dropping from the sky elicit the disdainful
laughter commonly reserved for straight-to-video sludge from The Asylum.
At some point we’ll stop comparing the endless stream of YA
hokum by the standards of The Hunger Games,
but at least that series wasn’t afraid to show famous people knee-deep in
muck, squeezing pus out of their faces or pulling shrapnel from torn clothes. Judging
by everyone’s perfectly manicured appearance in The 5th Wave, the vital list of apocalypse supplies has
been extended to include hair product and straighteners.
