Synopsis
16-year-old Cassie Sullivan tries to survive in a world devastated by the waves of an alien invasion that has already decimated the population and knocked mankind back to the Stone Age.
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Cast
- Chloë Grace MoretzCassiopeia "Cassie" Sullivan
- Nick RobinsonBen "Zombie" Parish
- Ron LivingstonOliver Sullivan
- Maggie SiffLisa Sullivan
- Alex RoeEvan Walker
- Maria BelloSergeant Reznik
- Maika MonroeMarika "Ringer" Kimura
- Zackary ArthurSammy "Nugget" Sullivan
- Liev SchreiberLieutenant Colonel Alexander Vosch
- Tony RevoloriDumbo
- 75
USA Today
The 5th Wave finds a way to make the most of Moretz’s talents, with the emotionality she showed in If I Stay and the utter physical chutzpah of her Kick-Ass films. - 58
Entertainment Weekly
The frankly preposterous nature of the film’s setup is rendered slightly less so by a couple of second act reveals. But, by then, many viewers will have lost interest in a movie with a very high bodycount but a very small amount of grit, either emotional or literal. - 50
Variety
Enough of Yancey’s ambitious narrative has made the final cut to reflect an arrestingly original spin on trendy genre tropes. - 50
The Hollywood Reporter
Director J Blakeson...might be making franchise bait but he exhibits a relatively restrained reliance on spectacle, and the screenplay by Jeff Pinkner, Susannah Grant and Akiva Goldsman is light on the aphoristic earnestness that bogged down the most recent Hunger Games, or last year’s Goldsman-penned Insurgent. - 42
The Playlist
Moretz strikes a convincing empowered-badass pose but has no amount of charismatic fearsomeness can energize the illogical latter portions of The 5th Wave, which are driven by revelations about the aliens that, to put it bluntly, make no sense. - 40
Empire
Everything that comes after the confident, dangerous first half-hour just makes you pine for what could have been as this devolves into ten-a-penny teen-lit sludge. - 38
Movie Nation
It’s all so obvious and (unintentionally) laugh-out-loud funny...Seriously, if you’re not five steps ahead of The Fifth Wave, you need to have yourself tested. - 30
Screen Daily
Like many films designed to double as opening chapters in ongoing screen sagas, The Fifth Wave always feels padded, its focus on establishing a springboard for future sequels rather than satisfactorily exploring its own narrative.