The 5th Wave - C-

Chloe Grace Moretz

Rated PG-13, 112 minutes

"The 5th Wave" is the latest best-selling Young Adult dystopian novel with a young, spunky heroine turned into a bland, unoriginal movie. Based on the novel of the same name by Rick Yancey, fans of the sci-fi book may not be pleased the uneven outcome presented here. Four waves of increasingly deadly alien attacks have left most of Earth devastated. Against a backdrop of fear and distrust, Cassie Sullivan (Chloe Grace Moretz) is on the run, desperately trying to save her younger brother Sammy (Zackary Arthur). As she prepares for the fifth wave, Cassie teams up with a young man named Evan (Alex Roe), who may become her final hope – if only she could trust him. Mildly entertaining but disappointing at best, "The 5th Wave," directed by British TV director J Blakeson, is another lackluster, mish-mash attempt to cash in on the trend started by "The Hunger Games," which itself petered out late last year in its final installment. While Moretz, of "Hugo" and "Kick-Ass" fame, is a believable enough fragile ingenue, she is no Jennifer Lawrence, and the dull, uninteresting script lacks a powerful story arc and a gritty, creepy feel given the alient takeover, and interestingly enough, for a movie about saving humanity, it sure lacks it. It starts off well as the 4 waves unfold, then somewhere in the second act, as Cassie wanders around looking for her brother and trying to save planet Earth, it drifts off into a stale romance mixed with some uneasy political and military-style themes, losing considerable focus near the end. "The 5th Wave" also looks cheap, with some fake, CG visuals, not to mention it wastes some fine actors, such as Ron Livingston and Liev Schreiber, both of whom are given little to do here, as well as a miscast Maria Bello, who at least tries to have a little fun and a gung-ho military leader.  "The 5th Wave" had an intriguing premise but it does little with it, and the dystopian-sci-fi mixture isn't an effective one, particularly in the dull final act, which fans of the book will notice is noticeably different here. This genre is starting to wear out its welcome, with more misses than hits that shows the odds are definitely not in favor of "The 5th Wave" being a success.