The 5th Wave is a good action sci-fi that has a little more bite than some would predict. Easy-to-warm-to-characters and an interesting storyline means the audience quickly feels part of this new world

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 29, 2024

No one is going to take tactical gear-wearing, elementary school-age kids with pretend-intimidating codenames and armed with semi-automatic weapons seriously.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 13, 2024

Despite featuring likeable actors like Grace-Moretz and Robinson, the film adaptation of Rick Yancey's novel has no time for anything. There's a propulsive need to barrel forward, but nothing lands (characters, plot, not even action).

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 18, 2024

These derivative YA stories, riddled with post-apocalyptic battles and love triangles, feel interchangeable, like they're all drawn from the same grab-bag of ideas. The 5th Wave does nothing to set itself apart from this hodgepodge.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Apr 22, 2022

The 5th Wave starts out strongly (with some nicely understated disaster porn imagery) but gradually loses its way and originality, before drifting towards an inconclusive ending.

| Apr 21, 2022

A young actor of diverse range and natural charm, Moretz navigates the well-worn tropes of such films with aplomb and brings a sense of natural realism and emotion to the outlandish proceedings.

| Sep 29, 2021

...a satisfying femme-centric sci-fi thriller.

| Sep 29, 2021

A hodge podge of ideas and genres.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 3, 2021

Presented from the point of view of a teen girl isn't original, but it allows for a strong female role in the hands of the charismatic Moretz.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 4, 2020

This is an awful film, by any standard.

| Original Score: D | Jul 13, 2020

A solid, workmanlike movie, but while there are some good moments, as well as inadvertently hilarious ones, it never rises above a moderate entry into the dystopian teen subgenre.

| Original Score: C- | Jul 3, 2020

The talent is there, but this film could have made more sense and been more compelling.

| Oct 16, 2019

Maybe the novel fleshes out the story and the characters, but that doesn't really help anybody who is going to see this movie.

| Jan 10, 2019

...drippy and derivative. Sadly, The 5th Wave is nothing more than a stillborn alien invasion soap opera that wants to spout off its Hunger Games-esque copycat coating but fails to delve into anything remotely original or bitingly daring

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 9, 2018

The 5th Wave is reasonably entertaining and it has something on its mind that is more nuanced than we might expect. Indeed, it's got enough going for it that we wish it could have been just a little deeper and subtler.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 1, 2018

There's very little to distinguish The 5th Wave from all the other young adult dystopias that came before it...a completely boilerplate and often slipshod production.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Oct 31, 2018

Though I do honestly respect the high body count and willingness to kill major characters-both gambles for teenage films-the plodding, pacing and sub-par effects prevent The 5th Wave from moving beyond its middling status.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Aug 30, 2018

The 5th Wave will not be the franchise to replace The Hunger Games, or even Divergent

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 4, 2017

The film comes across as an underwhelming fan tribute to Twilight and The Hunger Games series.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 9, 2017

It's the craziest of the YA dystopia movies by far, taking the premise of "child murder as entertainment" to new, un-dreamed-of heights.

| Oct 17, 2017