ENTERTAINMENT
Feb. 5, 2015
Blueprint
9
Fans of “The Fifth Wave” should dodge this movie dud By Eileen Tyrrell, Head Copy Editor The past several years have seen an increasing amount of teen dystopian/ fantasy book-to-movie adaptations, with varying levels of success. Now “The Fifth Wave” has joined the ranks as the latest blockbuster-wannabe movie trying to imitate the success of major franchises like “The Hunger Games;” unfortunately, so far it seems to be falling more on the “Beautiful Creatures”-failure side of the teen movie spectrum. The idea isn’t new; an alien species attempts to take over the Earth, their only opposition a gang of plucky, attractive young rebels fighting for their planet. It’s been done in “Independence Day,” “War of the Worlds” and other movies, be them successful or not. The twist in “The Fifth Wave,” then, is the feature of the waves -large scale attacks made by the aliens in an attempt to wipe out the entire human species one atrocity at a time. The first wave was an electromagnetic pulse that shut down cars, airplanes, TVs, cell phones and other electronic devices. The second was a series of massive
earthquakes and tsunami waves that wiped out every coastal city; the third, an unstoppable plague that killed off almost all of the remaining humans. With the fourth wave, the aliens were among the humans, picking them off one by one, “Predator”-style. This is the premise of “The Fifth Wave,” and it’s all set up within the first half hour of the movie. Chloe Grace Moretz narrates us through the first three waves as protagonist Cassie Sullivan in an almost successful attempt to replace her inner monologue, which was so important in the books. Despite this somewhat unsophisticated narration (Hello? Ever heard of show, not tell?), the scenes of destruction unleashed by each wave are decent. In fact, the movie was on a roll, right until we got to the fourth wave. Once the plague has killed almost everyone, the survivors, including the remnants of Cassie’s family, start to congregate in refugee camps. At this point the tone of the movie changes, and it’s disconcerting. Something felt off; either it was the somewhat sporadic pacing of the movie, or just the numerous plot holes
perforating the entire movie. Cassie’s narration ends and instead we begin to focus in on Cassie herself; this is GraceMoretz’s time to shine, and while she throws in some convincing emotion, most of the movie is your typical pulled-off-theshelf action scenes with little character depth. Maybe this is a good thing, though; in the few attempts made at character depth and real emotion, the script is simply too weak to pull it off. Some lines were inspiring, and the comedic timing was alright, but the amount of cringeworthy moments ruined the script for me altogether; at one point I was laughing at what was clearly supposed to be a serious moment. Taken altogether, “The Fith Wave” is a relatively successful teen apocalypse movie. It pulls off the humor, action and emotion necessary to attract it’s target demographic; for the most part, I found myself enjoying it. But as is often the case with teen book-to-movie adaptions, it didn’t have enough depth or sophistication to pull off its complex plot and become something more than a flimsy teen movie. Too much action tied to not
Adam Branch posing in front of a poster. Photos by Eileen Tyrrell
enough emotion, weak acting and a confusing jumble of references from the book sealed The Fifth Wave’s fate. I give it two stars and best wishes to its sequel. Contact Eileen at tyr2717@csd99.org
“The Forest” feels far from the familiar horror film flop By Gina Decarlis, Staff Reporter “The Forest” is an intense thriller/ horror film about the infamous Aokigahara Forest, better known as the Suicide Forest. This is a place where mentally unstable people go to contemplate their life and commit suicide. I saw the film the day after it was released into theaters, and I can definitely say I could watch it six more times without
getting sick of it. Popular British actress Natalie Dormer plays both twins, Sara and Jess. When Sara gets a call from the school in Japan that Jess teaches at, she is given the information that her dysfunctional twin has been missing and was last seen going into the Suicide Forest. Her “twin sense” tells her that Jess is still alive, so she decides to impulsively buy a plane ticket to Tokyo making a commitment to find her twin. Despite
the rumors Sara is told by multiple natives to the land, she still goes into the forest without any hesitation. It isn’t until she’s too deep into the forest that she realizes that she, too, has true sadness in her because she didn’t know that her parents were a in car accident. This film really kept me on my toes throughout the entire hour and half of screen time. It was intriguing but the beginning was very slow and a little confusing because of the bits and pieces of
ist she had met the day before entering the forest. It really kept the central focus on her problems and why she was hallucinating in the forest, rather than making it a love story. I feel like if Jason Zada, the director, formed a relationship between those two, it would have been a more generic and typical horror film. Usually I laugh at socalled “horror” movies because they’re so cheesy, but this one got straight to the point. Overall, I really enjoyed “The Forest”
backstory that the twins had. It was more towards the middle of the film that the story of the twins’ life had a little more closure, and I understood what they both had gone through. For me, while I was watching Sara and the way the forest messed with her mind, it really felt like it was messing with my perception of the movie as well. It felt very realistic, and I think that was my favorite part about this film. It was incredibly suspenseful, and it actually surprised me that it wasn’t as predictable as I thought it was going to be. It can relate to a lot of other thriller/ horror movies in some aspects but I thought it was great that they didn’t romanticize the relationship between Sara and Aiden, the supposed journal-
Graphic by Gabrielle Bartkeviciute
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because I wasn’t easily bored by it, and it was not your typical, cheesy horror movie. My opinion seems to be unpopular, since a lot of critical websites, like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, gave it low ratings because it didn’t have enough real Japanese culture about the forest included with the storyline. Though I can see their side, it still doesn’t change my opinion about the quality of this movie because it’s still an eye catcher and it sucks you in with various jump scares and incredible suspense. Contact Gina at gdec1259@csd99.org