One major reason that young-adult fiction is so alluring — when done well — is that it gives youngsters such a fulfilling scenario of independence from those older adults in their lives who always think they’re smarter and stronger. That scenario is front and center in “The 5th Wave,” where every adult is either evil, inhuman (literally), or nice but helpless. It’s truly up to the young — make that the young, buff and good-looking — to save humanity.
But if this movie, starring Chloe Grace Moretz, performs its appointed task with efficiency, it does little more.
Yes, the winsome Moretz is a fine, if one-note, reluctant heroine (the film’s based on Rick Yancey’s best-selling novel, and directed by J Blakeson). And she’s surrounded by more than one appealing young man (the YA action-film rulebook seems to dictate at least two, so we can have a triangle.) But the script has more than a few lines that should have been sent directly to rewrite, and there’s a nagging feeling throughout that we’ve sorta seen it all before.
Not that this will deter fans of Yancey’s book, which is the beginning of a trilogy, meaning we’re sure to see more of Moretz’s Cassie in years to come. She is, when we first meet her, a pretty perfect Ohio high-schooler. Yes, she goes to a party and drinks beer and crushes on a cute football player named Ben. But then she goes home early and sings her little brother Sam to sleep.