The 5th Wave rolls slowly and tells little story

The 5th Wave follows what is by now a familiar plot in post-apocalyptic young-adult movies. A disaster reconfigures the landscape, teens muster into combat troops and undergo tactical weapons training, the overnight heroes battle adults or other creatures from outer space, and the film’s final scenes leave room for a sequel.

In this version, a large spaceship hovers over Akron, Ohio. The aliens (who in the film scarcely show their tentacles) coordinate a series of attacks on Earth. The first three waves knock out the planet’s infrastructure, destroy coastal cities, and ravage the human population with disease. In the fourth wave, the aliens implant themselves into numerous human hosts—indistinguishable from uncorrupted individuals—and take them over. What the aliens have in store for the remaining human population in the fifth wave is the stuff of the film.

What Sony Pictures likely has in store is The 6th Wave.

After fast-paced and cataclysmic opening scenes (the film is rated PG-13 for violence and destruction, some sci-fi thematic elements, language, and brief teen partying), The 5th Wave peters to a trickle. Two storylines develop.

Cassie (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her younger brother, Sammy (Zackary Arthur), experience their parents’ deaths and then get separated. Military personnel take Sammy and other kids to an Air Force base, assigning them to different squads. The youngsters pass the time in target practice and rehearsing field maneuvers. The members of Sammy’s end-of-the-world breakfast club, led by former high-school football star Ben (Nick Robinson), bicker over who runs the squad and invent nicknames—Zombie, Ringer, Tea Cup—for each other.

Back out in the woods, Cassie meets loner Evan (Alex Roe), who volunteers to help her find Sammy. She begins to wonder whose side he’s on, but his good looks quell her caution.

Cassie and Evan eventually meet up with Sammy’s squad at the base and combine forces. In a barely surprising twist, they learn the truth about their circumstances, which include opportunities for roles in the sequel.