“The 5th Wave” #twilightwithaliens is a 2016 American science fiction thriller film, directed by J Blakeson, with a screenplay by Susannah Grant, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner. It was based on the novel of the same name by Rick Yancey. The film stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff, Alex Roe, Maria Bello, Maika Monroe and Liev Schreiber.
The movie starts as Cassie Sullivan, armed with an M4 carbine, emerges from the woods to raid an abandoned gas station. Upon entering, she hears someone calling for help. While searching the store, she hears a man, whom points a gun at her, but they each put their weapons down. His hand is under his jacket and as he takes it out, she sees a glint of metal and kills him.
He was holding a crucifix. Oops.
The screen cuts to black to show her back story.
From what we could gather, the story sort of goes a little like this:
Aliens from Outer SPACE with GIANT SPACE SHIPS OF DOOM Appear around Earth’s Obit and junk.
Their plan of attack is as follows:
The First Wave: Massive Power Outage
The Second Wave: Tsunamis caused by aliens dropping large metal rods on the Earth’s fault lines obliterate coastal cities and islands. Lots of people die.
The Third Wave: Weaponizing a strain of avian flu- three million birds carried the virus and countless people die from the plague.
The Fourth Wave: ??? (Gather the children and kill all their parents for fun and profit?)
The Fifth Wave: Con kids and teenagers into killing the adults, and get them to work for the aliens. We think. Maybe.
And here you will see a GIANT ALIEN SPACESHIP OF DOOM!
Sassy Cassie was a typical high school girl who had a crush on the captain on the football team. (Awww!!!)
One day, during class, there is a massive power outage (the First Wave). Caused by some sort of celestial electro-magnetic pulse (or something) that causes all the cars to crash and planes just drop right out of the sky.
Cassie is the blandest lead character I’ve seen in a film in a long time. They try to make her a badass and fail horribly.
What do you mean, I’m bland?
Cassie and her brother Sammy collect water in the woods and climb a tree to avoid the flood waters. Because a massive flood isn’t going to knock down trees or anything. Right?! Right?
Then the bird flu outbreak happens and her mother dies from the plague. They make a memorial in their backyard for her, and then search for a safe zone to stay in. They come across a refugee camp in the woods (still standing even though massive Tsunamis but whatever) and decide to stay there.
A few days later the Army unit rolls into the camp and places all the children into buses.
The wheels on the bus go round and round!
They promise the adults they would come back from them, but of course we all know that won’t happen. Why they are rounding up children and not able bodied adults to help join the fight against a massive alien invasion? No one knows…
Sammy is placed in one bus, and Cassie is put in another. Then she witnesses THE ARMY kill all the adults. Just mows them down with bullets.
Man what? How in the freaking hell does that make any god damned sense?
“You will never see your children again.” Blam Blam Blam! See? I told you! Now you’re dead and you won’t see anything ever again! Mwahahahaha!
Anyways, after the senseless carnage, Cassie starts scavenging (I guess she got away from THE ARMY after she missed her bus ride) and heads towards the base to find her brother. She is shot in the leg by random dumbass that is never identified, because REASONS. And I guess she passes out from blood loss, or something. When she comes to, a few days later *wink wink* she meets Evan Walker; the man who saved her, and probably shot her in the leg to get her to stick around so that he could abduct her and convince her to love him or some bullshit. He tells her that he is an alien (a species called the blandest name ever, THE OTHER) and he can shapeshift and chose to remain in human form because REASONS.
First he says, “Love is a lie humans tell each other to survive.” Then later he says “Love is real because I’ve fallen for you Cassie.” LOL Which one is it? Are you lying? Are you a total moron? Are you even an alien? No one knows…
Any hoo, after being bandaged by Evan she leaves on her own to find Sam, but not before Evan tells her Colonel Vosch and THE ARMY are THE OTHER(s), and that the fifth wave will use children to kill the remaining survivors.
According to this film children and teens are easily tricked into believing lies.
Thanks a lot Hollywood for treating your audience like a bunch of vapid bimbos. We appreciate it!
So yeah, while Cassie is running to the rescue to get Sammy Sam Sam, Ben Parish, her high school crush, takes over the movie. He is sick with the bird flu. THE ARMY soldiers take him to see Dr. Pam, and he miraculously recovers from the deadly disease. Yay!
Thanks Dr. Pam!
Then, Dr. Pam tells him that the OTHER(s) raided the camp (They’re staying at Camp Haven at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base), and have taken over human hosts and are posing as refugees. So, according to her, they can’t shapeshift and just pilot around human bodies like living meat cars. Delightful.
Ben is brainwashed and put through the “Wonderland” program. He is shown his buddy Chris (who was trying to nurse him back to health by the way) through a special magical eyepiece thingamajig that shows a critter attached to Chris’ brain.
Does this make my chin look fat?
He is told that the critter is one of THE OTHER(s) and Ben is tricked into killing his friend. And this is how they “trick” the kids and teens into killing their own kind. By showing them their friend’s brains through a random device that couldn’t possibly be rigged to make all of their potential enemies look like the aliens.
So, I just gotta put the helmet on? That’s it?
Ben is in command of Squad 53. Because reasons. Commander Vosch, who killed Cassie’s father at their refugee camp, meets Ben in his room. Vosch is straightforward and tells Ben that they will all die, but not without a fight. He gives Ben a position in Camp Haven’s NEW ARMY, and he becomes Private Zombie. Because that’s the best code name EVAR!!!!111
What’s that? You making fun of my call sign bitch? Imma cap yo ass.
Cassie goes to the training camp and saves her brother. There she finds Ben and Evan. Evan says in a monotone voice “I want to help” and blows up the facility as they run away.
The members of Squad 53 arrive and save Zombie Ben, Cassie and Sam. They ride off as Camp Haven is destroyed. THE OTHER(s) evacuate the camp and send the children to other cities. Because reasons. Then Cassie and friends plan to go and rescue the other children and the movie ends with sequel bait.
This movie reminds me at times of “The Host”, another awful young adult film featuring an alien invasion with aliens that can look exactly like people.
