Before I begin my review I just want to do a shout out to all the ANNOYING ASS CHILDREN (specifically idiotic teenage boys) out there who talk REALLY LOUDLY during movies. Nobody cares about your opinion, nobody wants to hear you whispering a play by play, nobody wants to hear your voice over the actors, and nobody wants to listen to you trying to impress your equally annoying friend. AND SERIOUSLY, TAKE A HINT, BECAUSE SERIOUSLY YOU WERE TOLD TO SHUT UP TWICE AND I KICKED YOUR CHAIR TWICE!!!

 I did survive The 5th Wave. It was actually a pretty short Wave. Only about an hour and a half. You could definitely say that’s one of the shortest action movies I’ve ever seen. And it makes you wonder about all the things they wouldn’t have had to leave out had they added even 30 minutes to the length of the movie. I actually couldn’t help but compare it to Mockingjay Part 2. Not that they are anything alike, however when it came to length of The 5th Wave, all I could think about was how there seems to be no in between when making these young adult movies. Either they are too long, or too short. Why can’t I have a movie that’s a good length and that doesn’t cut out anything too important, but yet doesn’t follow the book so much that you get bored watching it play out on screen? There is a nice balance to what the fans of the book want to see on screen to what should be cut because it obviously doesn’t play out as well in movie form.

Plot:

Basically they cut out a lot. I understood why they changed what they did about the movie in order to make it all believable within an hour and a half, but had they made it a little longer they wouldn’t have had to change as much. The beginning was rather confusing for those who hadn’t read the book (I went with a friend who hadn’t read it). She didn’t like it because she felt like she couldn’t follow along. Which I get why. Not only did they cut out a lot but even the things that were important to the plot seemed rushed and glossed over. Also, just like with the Hunger Games I had issues with the lack of informing the audience of how much time had passed in the movie. It appeared as though everything happened to this chick within weeks and the constant jumping between past and present in the beginning of the movie didn’t help. It would be SO FREAKING simple to have the character mention that it’s been X amount of weeks. Seriously, like I shouldn’t have to be pointing that out. If you hadn’t read the book it seemed like in the movie that Evan and Cassie’s relationship happened extremely quickly. Also I’d like to point out that even though you sort of speculate that Evan isn’t human, the commercials totally ruined it for people who didn’t read the book. Way to go commercials. Now, I don’t want anyone to think I hated this movie and I only have negative things to say about, because it wasn’t the worst I’d seen and I’m glad that in the end I did see it. Even though a lot was changed in the plot it at least didn’t make it dumb or boring. The things that my friend had a hard time understanding in the beginning just made her want to go and read the book. So all in all I didn’t think it was horrible. But there were lots of things they could have done better.

Characters:

There were lots of changes made to the characters personalities as well. Immediately I noticed the change they made with Cassie. In the books she isn’t the type of person who goes to high school parties and she would never talk to her long time crush Ben. However in the first 10 minutes of the film when they are playing out her life before the alien invasion she goes to a high school party and talks to Ben Parish. I understand they probably made that change not only to introduce Ben in a good fashion but this slight personality change makes Cassie more relatable and likeable on screen. So I didn’t mind that because at least when this movie was made they got the concept that some things just work better in a movie even if that means changing things from the book slightly. They made Ben’s character much softer, which I’m taking a guess here and saying that’s because they want people to like him and then ship him with Cassie to create the next love triangle (bring on the new Katniss-Peeta-Gale). Although it’s really not necessary and is probably just to spark more buzz about the films. They cut short a lot of deaths that were rather emotional in the book, and they changed all these little details about the characters and what they really do in the books just to make the movie flow better. Again, had they made the movie longer they could have worked on character growth and development (there’s always the chance to do that in the second of course, but I don’t see the point in not doing it now). It honestly would have taken the extra 30 minutes to sit the characters down and have them talk about themselves.

Music:

To be honest, I wasn’t even paying attention to the music. So I don’t want to say it was bad but I really can’t make any judgment on whether or not they chose songs that fit perfectly with the scenes. Except for the credits at the end when they played Alive by Sia. That was a good song choice for the movie, plus I just really like it.

Rate: 5/10 stars and a soft drink to dump on the noisy people in front of you