The 5th Wave is a 2016 American science fiction action film directed by J Blakeson, based on Rick Yancey's eponymous novel with a screenplay by Susannah Grant. The film stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Alex Roe, Maika Monroe, Liev Schreiber, and Zackary Arthur.
Plot[]
Ohio high-schooler Cassie Sullivan, armed with an M4 carbine, emerges from the woods to raid an abandoned gas station. Upon entering, she hears a voice calling for help. She finds a wounded man who points a gun at her, and then each of the two asks the other to put one's own weapon down. When he pulls his other hand out from under his jacket, she mistakes the metallic glint of a Christian cross for that of a gun, so she kills him: the screen then cuts to black, and her backstory begins.
A colossal alien spaceship is circling Earth, guided by extraterrestrial life referred to as "The Others." Ten days later, The Others unleash their 1st Wave, an electromagnetic pulse that disables all electrical power and communications worldwide and shuts off the engines of moving vehicles, including planes in mid-flight. The 2nd Wave has The Others manipulate the planet's geology and fault lines, causing earthquakes and megatsunamis that destroy coastal cities and islands, including Miami, London, Bangkok and New York City. In Ohio, Lake Erie floods, but Cassie and her younger brother Sam are able to escape by climbing a tree. For the 3rd Wave, The Others modify a strain of avian influenza and spread it across the planet via birds. The population is decimated, with Cassie's mother, Lisa, one of the victims. In the 4th wave, The Others possess common humans and start killing other humans.
Cassie, Sam, and their father, Thomas, find a summer camp in the woods that is used as a refuge for roughly 300 survivors. A few days later, an Army unit with working vehicles rolls into the camp. The unit's commander, Colonel Alexander Vosch, claims there is an imminent threat of a 5th Wave, and they will take the children to safety at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, intending to bring the buses back to retrieve the adults. Cassie is separated from Sam and witnesses the Army massacring all the adults, including Thomas. Cassie makes her way toward the base but is shot in the leg by a sniper and passes out. About a week later, she wakes up in the farmhouse of a young man named Evan Walker, who saved her. Cassie leaves towards the base with Evan, but learns he is an Other, sent years ago as a sleeper agent and merged his consciousness into a human host. The sleepers roam their designated zones, killing human survivors. Evan admits his humanity was reactivated when he saw her, disagrees with the invasion, and lets her leave. He warns that Vosch and the military are possessed by the consciousness of individual Others.
At the base, the military have used deception and technology to convince the rescued children that the humans outside the base have been possessed. They provide military training to the children, forming them into squads to go on kill missions outside the base. Sam has been placed into a squad led by Ben Parish, a boy Cassie had a crush on, along with Ringer, a tough teenage girl, Dumbo, who survived the 2nd wave, and Teacup. While on a kill mission, Ringer removes her military implant, causing her to register as an Other-possessed human on the squad's scopes. The squad deduces the plan to have them kill real un-possessed humans, making them the 5th Wave. Ben sends his squad into the woods and returns to base, claiming his squad was killed for the purpose of retrieving Sam, who was left behind. Ben confronts Vosch about child warriors being the 5th Wave, and Cassie kills Sergeant Reznik during her one-on-one indoctrination spiel. Ben and Cassie find each other and leave to find Sam. Evan sets off numerous bombs and advises them to quickly find Sam before the destruction of the entire facility. Vosch and the surviving military Others evacuate with the human children by military aircraft. Cassie, Ben, and Sam escape, with help from Ringer, just as Evan completes the base's destruction. Ben's squad is reunited, and Cassie ponders the strength of hope as humanity's driving force for survival.
Cast[]
- Chloë Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan
- Alex Roe as Evan Walker
- Nick Robinson as Ben Thomas Parish
- Ron Livingston as Oliver Sullivan
- Maggie Siff as Lisa Sullivan
- Maria Bello as Sergeant Reznik
- Maika Monroe as Ringer
- Zackary Arthur as Sam Sullivan
- Liev Schreiber as Colonel Alexander Vosch
- Tony Revolori as Dumbo
- Talitha Bateman as Teacup
- Nadji Jeter as Poundcake
- Alex MacNicoll as Flintstone
- Parker Wierling as Jeremy
Production[]
Development of The 5th Wave began in March 2012 when Columbia Pictures picked up the film rights to the trilogy with Graham King 's production company GK Films and Tobey Maguire's Material Pictures . Filming took place in Atlanta, Georgia from October 2014 to January 2015.
The 5th Wave was released on January 22, 2016 by Colombia Pictures.