By Emily Risner

 The movie The Fifth Wave rolls on shore in last place among the recent teen dramas, such as The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent. This film, directed by J Blakeson, had a very interesting concept. However, the movie was executed poorly. The movie starts out with an odd spoiler where Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Moretz) walks into an abandoned convenience store and shoots a guy who she thought was an alien, but was actually a normal citizen. This troubling scene was never revisited or explained.

Cassie and her family were living a normal day when suddenly they saw an abnormal object in the sky. The first “wave” completed by aliens known as the others, was an electronic shut off. Nothing with motors or batteries or anything that required plumbing was working. Blakeson showed barely a day on this wave, completely skipping over the topic and causing the movie to start out boring. Then, it was on to the next wave. The second wave was a tsunami that cleared out everything and everyone near water. This, again, was shown over a very short period of time, leaving the viewers with questions as to what happened after the tsunami.

The third wave was a disease that came from birds killing off many people. After this, Cassie and her family went to a refugee camp where she was separated from her younger brother and parents. As Cassie was wandering, she met the mysterious Evan (Alex Roe), starting to develop a weak love triangle because of her high school crush, Ben Parish (Nick Robinson). Cassie learns a terrifying secret about Evan and runs away. She finally makes it to the military, and she finds out her brother is there.

At the point where the movie is starting to get interesting, suddenly, it ends. The movie dragged until the last 20 minutes when it ushed to a conclusion, leaving the viewers confused and unsatisfied. The movie’s characters were underdeveloped and with little background, it’s hard to care about the characters.

The plot jumped around and left details unanswered. One example of a huge hole in the story is the fact that after the blackout there were army soldiers that were able to drive buses and trucks and use electricity when everyone else could not, and the characters were not even phased by this. The plot itself makes little sense; there is an alien force invading the Earth by utilizing advanced intelligence and tactics, yet this same group chooses to rely on conventional weapons such as human-made guns and airplanes to try to end the human race. I give this film  two out of 5 stars because the plot had an interesting concept, but it was confusing and underdeveloped.