The 5th Wave | Film review - Plucky teen Chloë Grace Moretz battles aliens and a lacklustre script | Movie Talk | What's on TV

The 5th Wave Chloe Grace Moretz.jpg — (Image credit: Chuck Zlotnick)

Chloë Grace Moretz is the latest plucky teenager battling overwhelming odds in a dystopian sci-fi thriller, following in the footsteps of Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games and Shailene Woodley in the Divergent series.

Based on the young-adult novel by Rick Yancey (first of a trilogy, naturally), The 5th Wave finds the Earth attacked by an alien spaceship. Moretz’s high-school student, Cassie Sullivan, survives the extraterrestrials’ initial assaults – the first wave power cuts, second earthquakes, third a deadly virus – and, like her fellow movie heroines, winds up torn between two potential suitors, school quarterback Ben (Nick Robinson) and hunky stranger Evan (Alex Roe).

Moretz is a gifted actress but fails to make her usual impact in a lacklustre effort that suggests the teen sci-fi genre is producing increasingly diminishing returns.

Certificate 12. Runtime 112 mins. Director J Blakeson

The 5th Wave is available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmxLybfGNC4

Blu-ray Extras Include:

Commentary with Director J Blakeson and Chloë Grace Moretz

Five Featurettes:

“Inside The 5th Wave

“Sammy on the Set”

“The 5th Wave Survival Guide”

“Training Squad 53”

“Creating a New World”

Cast Gag Reel

Deleted Scenes

DVD Extras Include:

Commentary with Director J Blakeson and Chloë Grace Moretz

Two Featurettes:

“Inside The 5th Wave

“Sammy on the Set”

CATEGORIES

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.