The 5th Wave
The arrival of an alien spacecraft has brought four waves of increasing death and destruction on earth whittling humanity to a tiny presence. Now bracing for the fifth wave of destruction the military, led by Colonel Vosch (Liev Schreiber), has separated the remaining children from the adults to weed out humans from “the others” to create a nimble army of foot soldiers. Meanwhile, survivor Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moritz) is on a mission to keep her brother (Zackary Arthur) from harm’s way, military or not. But in this extraterrestrial gambit, who’s fighting for who remains the big question. 
Based on Rick Yancey’s novel for young adults, all the typical hallmarks are present for the latest teen book to film conversion craze. Sadly, for relative newcomer Director J Blakeson having cookie cutter bits and pieces just isn’t enough to create a rich and compelling story, even with the star power invoked from the ensemble. And, while the film is clearly a setup for sequels it’s questionable whether that’ll be in the cards, throwing all the cliche turns, twists, and re-hashed scenarios at the wall the end result is a failure to spark the magic on an emotional level. Waiting for this to appear on the Syfy network is probably about right. The 5th Wave is rated PG-13.