Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you an action, adventure, sci-fi film from 2016, titled The 5th Wave.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
A girl is seen walking toward a store with a riffle.
Cassie enters the emptied and destroyed market and grabs everything she can find when she
hears someone ask for help.
The girl goes in the back to check.
As she enters the room a man points a gun at her.
Both of them want the other to drop their weapon.
He does it first then asks her to do it as well.
She tells him to move his other hand, hidden under his jacket.
The man tells her that he's wounded.
When moves his hand, the girl sees something and thinking it might be a weapon, she shoots
him.
He had a crucifix in his hand.
In a flashback, we see her at a party with her friends.
She and her friend talk about her crush.
As Cassie exits the party, she sees Ben, her crush.
They have a brief exchange.
Cassie gets home and checks in with her dad Oliver and says goodnight to her brother Sam.
The next day, Cassie has soccer practice.
Her friend wants to show her something strange on her phone, but they get interrupted by
their teacher.
All of a sudden, Cassie notices everyone else is on their phone because something major
is happening.
Later, Cassie's family watches the news report about a mysterious UFO.
Sam runs out of the house and the rest follow him only to be struck by the image of the
UFO in the sky above them.
During the first 10 days, the aliens made no attempt at communicating.
People from Cassie's neighborhood begin to move away from the cities which is noticeable
the next day at her school.
Suddenly, all kinds of devices stop working.
The kids in the class hear a crash outside and they see a pile up on the road in front
of the school.
An airplane is also seen falling from the sky, crashing near the school, and destroying
some of the cars.
This was a reaction to the electromagnetic pulse that the aliens had activated - the
1st wave meant to kill all the power.
Later, Cassie's dad picks her up from school.
She looks at Ben and thinks it will be the last time she'd see him.
Flash forward some time, Cassie and Sam are getting water, when the 2nd wave hits like
an earthquake.
They run away from the falling trees when a giant wave appears behind them.
Cassie manages to get Sam and herself to safety, climbing up on a nearby tree.
They were the lucky ones, unlike the cities close to the ocean.
Tsunamis had hit all the coastal cities and every island, completely destroying them.
After the 2nd wave, the 3rd one was a modified avian flu that the aliens had sent back to
the planet, decimating the human population.
Cassie arrives at her school which was made into an additional medical facility.
She sees her friend there and goes to greet her, but Cassie's mom appears and tells her
that her friend is quarantined.
She puts a mask on her and makes her go home.
Later, Cassie and the rest of her family have a funeral for her mom that died from the flu.
After some time, Cassie is packing essential things and getting ready to leave.
She ties Sam's shoes as their dad packs the last of the stuff they'll need.
The three of them leave the house and begin the trek toward a refugee camp.
They get there before nightfall and are greeted by one of the main people in the camp.
That night, Oliver pulls Cassie aside from the others and shows her a gun.
He explains how she should use it and when.
Oliver tells her that she has to keep it on her constantly and hide it from others.
Cassie takes it, saying that she thought they were safe there, but Oliver tells her that
nothing is safe anymore.
Sometime later, everyone hears a strange racket and sees a cloud of dust approaching the camp.
Suddenly, army tanks drive out of the cloud and park in the center of the place, along
with school busses.
Colonel Vosch announces that he and his men are from an army base and are there to help
them.
The army officers divide the adults from the children.
The adults go to the mess hall for a briefing and the children get on the buses.
Oliver is given the same information as he and his kids move together toward the bus.
Vosch interrupts his argument with an officer and tells them the reasons behind the separation.
He explains that the camp is in danger and since they only have limited transportation,
the army has decided to prioritize getting the kids back to safety.
Oliver decides to listen to the Colonel and makes Cassie and Sam get on board.
He tells her to take care of her brother and assures them that he'll arrive at the base
soon as well.
Once the kids are inside, Sam realizes he's forgotten his teddy bear and since Cassie
can't persuade him to leave without it, she goes to get it, making him stay on the bus.
Cassie enters the sleeping quarters, but as soon as she finds the bear, she hears the
busses leave.
She runs toward them, though never manages to reach the moving bus.
Meanwhile, Vosch informs the adults that the army believes that the 4th wave has begun.
The aliens have come down from their ships and are moving among people, possessing the
ability to inhabit human hosts and control their actions.
The people from the camp become rattled and Vosch tells them that even though they can
detect the aliens in children, they still can't detect them in adults.
Everyone asks about their children, but the colonel tells them that they'll be held in
a different facility than them because there is no way to differentiate humans from aliens.
Cassie appears outside of the mess hall, but Oliver signals her not to come inside and
to hide.
Suddenly, a man antagonizes the army men, asking to be let out and everyone begins shooting.
Cassie runs into the woods.
A bit later, the soldiers leave the mess hall without any civilians.
Cassie comes back and picks up Sam's teddy bear.
She walks inside the mess and finds Oliver dead among the others.
Before she leaves, Cassie grabs a riffle and runs into the woods again.
Later, the children arrive at the base.
As they walk out of the buses, they are given numbers and told to wait.
The first number called is Ben's.
He's taken inside the facility.
An army doctor is examining him as Sergeant Reznik questions him.
He tells her that his family died in the previous waves.
Reznik tells him that he's lucky because he can avenge their deaths.
Like the rest of the kids, he will help in the fight against the aliens.
She injects a tracker into his neck.
Ben asks how they can fight the aliens if they don't know what they are.
Reznik brings him to another room to demonstrate how they're able to detect them.
She shows him a boy attached to wires and then gives him a special visor to see the
alien.
It is a parasite that infects humans and controls them.
No extraction method works so the only way to kill the parasite is to kill the host.
She hands him a switch to kill the boy.
Ben falters but eventually kills him.
Reznik welcomes him to the fight.
Simultaneously, Cassie is surviving by herself.
She hides in the woods and thinks that she can't trust anyone.
Her main objective is to get to the base and find her little brother.
After a long journey, she runs out of water when she sees the store where we saw her first.
That night, Cassie falls asleep with her brother's bear.
The next day, she reaches a highway filled with abandoned cars.
She finds dead bodies scattered between the vehicles and realizes they have been killed
recently.
Cassie sees an alien drone and immediately gets shot in the thigh.
She hides under a truck for a moment, but remembers her brother and decides to shoot
her way out of the situation.
Unfortunately, she passes out.
Meanwhile, Vosch prepares the children for the upcoming battle with the aliens.
He tells them that they are planning a final attack, a 5th wave.
If the aliens succeed in that wave, humanity will be wiped out.
The children are thought how to be soldiers, how to fight, defend and kill, with Vosh constantly
in their ear proclaiming them as the final hope for humanity.
Vosch asks them if they can do what he asks them to do and all of them, apart from Ben
and Sam, confirm that they can.
Cassie wakes up in a bed, with her wound dressed and attached to an IV.
Suddenly, someone walks up the stairs and as he enters, she pretends to be asleep.
The next day, Cassie takes out the needle from the IV, gets to her backpack to find
her gun, but falls over because her wound is still fresh.
She hears the man coming and gets back into bed.
When the man walks in, he tells her that he knows she's awake.
He introduces himself as Evan.
Cassie asks where she is, and Evan tells her how he found her and brought her there.
She asks for her gun, but he says that he didn't see one where he found her.
Suddenly, Evan realizes that Cassie might have torn her stitches, and when he confirms
his suspicion, he picks her up and takes her to the bathroom to fix her up again.
As he's sanitizing her wound, Evan tells her that she's been there for a week.
Then Cassie asks how far they are from the base and he tells her.
Later, he asks her why she asked about the base and Cassie tells him about Sam.
Evan tells her that he wanted to help her because he couldn't save his family and he
needed to feel more human.
At the base, the kids are playing poker, already settled into their new roles.
They talk about the new recruit joining their squad when Reznik brings her in and introduces
her as Ringer.
She shows her to her bunk.
As soon as Ringer puts her stuff down she goes over to Ben and asks if he's the leader
of the squad.
The girl wants to assert her dominance on him and everyone else, so she antagonizes
them by belittling them as a squad and threatening them.
Ringer asks Ben if he plays chess when one of the other kids tells her that they don't
but they can play strip poker.
She punches him in the throat and says that she won't allow for any demeaning and sexist
remarks.
Teacup likes her attitude.
Simultaneously, Cassie is planning her route to the base, still staying with Evan.
While he's in the yard, she goes to his room and finds a secret compartment.
Cassie finds her gun hidden there.
She grabs it, packs in a hurry, and limps out of the house.
Cassie sets off a booby trap and Evan catches her, disarms her, and pulls her down, telling
her to be quiet.
An alien vessel flies over them and a hunter looks for them in the woods.
When they get back to the house, Evan tells her that he didn’t' tell her about the gun
because he was afraid she was an alien.
Cassie's stumped since he's right to be suspicious too.
Evan tells her that the hunter is an alien and he tracks people down along with the alien
drones.
They talk about her going to the base to get her brother, but Evan says that he might be
dead already.
Cassie doesn't agree and says that she'll go get him.
Evan follows her into her room and tells her that he'll come with her.
He says that he'll get her there, even though he can't promise what they'll find at the
base.
In the meantime, Ben gets closer to Ringer.
She tells him that unlike him, she had to take care of herself even before the aliens
came so she was ready for the end of the world.
Ringer was doing fine before they dragged her into the school bus.
Ben corrects her, saying they were rescued.
She says that they were drafted.
The two of them are sparring partners and Ben tells her that if he can take her down,
she'll teach him and the rest of the squad how to shoot.
She agrees and takes him down easily.
Unfortunately, she gets a little cocky, so he tackles her down second.
Cassie and Evan are on their way to the base.
She asks him to teach her how to disarm someone the way he disarmed her.
Evan patronizes her and she calls him out, telling him that she isn't trying to be tough,
but that she promised her brother that she would save him.
Cassie gets her point across so Evan decides to show her how to do it.
First, he demonstrates on her, then he lets her try a few times and also teaches her how
to subdue her attacker.
She thanks him and they continue their journey to the base.
There, Ringer is teaching her squad how to shoot.
She gives them a few tips and tells them to try again.
Reznik joins them and tells Ben that the Colonel wants to see him.
The boy follows her to a war room.
Vosch calls him over and informs him of several simultaneous attacks on different cities.
The 5th wave of the invasion has begun.
He shows him an improved and mobile version of the visor they used in medical before with
which they can see the aliens on the battlefront.
Vosch tells him that they need to test the visors on the field and he'll send Ben's squad
as one of four to do that the next day.
He tells him to bring his squad back in one piece.
In the woods, Cassie wakes up in the tent alone.
She looks for Evan and finds him bathing in the river.
He notices her watching him and she runs away.
When Evan gets back to their camp and finds Cassie looking through her photos.
He asks her about her best friend and recognizes Ben in a photo from his description in her
journal.
Cassie is embarrassed that he's read it.
Evan then sees a photo of Sam and tells her that he can't wait to meet him.
They pack up and leave the campsite, then follow the train tracks, until night falls
and they find shelter.
The same night, Ben and Sam can't sleep and they talk.
The boy begins to sing the way Cassie sang to him before everything happened.
Ben sings with him, annoying the rest of the squad, except Ringer.
Meanwhile, Evan helps Cassie redress her wound.
She kisses him and thanks him.
Early that morning, the squad is getting into a helicopter to get to the testing site.
Ringer asks Ben where Sam is and he tells her that he has food poisoning, but he actually
restrained the little boy in the bathroom so he stays safely in the base.
He's left his locket with Sam as well.
The squad arrives at the location and an officer asks Ben what their mission is.
He says that they are to infiltrate the enemy's nest and terminate them.
She reminds them that the visors light up green for aliens and that once they're done
they should signal for extraction.
The helicopter drops them off and leaves as they enter enemy territory.
Ben leads his squad of kids forward when one of them sees two aliens straight ahead.
Before the squad can engage, they start shooting at them.
Finding themselves in a tight situation, they hide in an alley and Ben tells them to run
and take shelter in a bus.
He and Ringer are the last ones in so Ben closes the doors.
They receive more enemy fire and one of them gets shot.
Ringer realizes that they can't stay there and acts as a distraction for the enemy until
the rest can get to another ally.
Ben tells the others to get ready to run on his call.
Ringer yells for them to run and as they do, the bus she rigged explodes behind them.
The squad gets into an abandoned mall and when they clear it, they settle down.
Ringer joins them and immediately voices her suspicion that something isn't right with
the aliens.
She wonders how can they make earthquakes and yet be afraid of an army of children.
Ringer decides to escape the army, so she takes out her tracker.
The moment she does, the rest read her as an alien on their visors and freak out.
They don't know what to do until Ben realizes what is happening.
He takes out his tracker and the others see him as an alien too.
Ben says that he's not an alien and neither are the people that were shooting at them
earlier.
Reznik and Vosch lied to them.
He says that green actually means human and that the visors and the trackers were fake.
The real test was on them, to see how they would react to the situation.
When the others question his logic, he explains that the army is actually the aliens, manipulating
kids to do their dirty work and pick off the rest of the survivors.
Ben tells them that they're not fighting the 5th wave, but that they are the 5th wave.
Teacup asks what they should do and he tells all of them to take out their trackers.
Ben will be the only one to go back to the base to save Sam.
He tells Ringer to shoot him so it looks real.
Simultaneously, hunters find Evan and Cassie.
Evan walks out of the truck and one of them tells him that he's out of his drone sector
then shoots at him.
Cassie wakes up to find Eva struggling with the two men and he tells her to run.
Before she does, Cassie takes out the gun and is looking for ammo when she sees something
strange, then Evan falling next to the truck.
One of the men is going after her and she manages to escape briefly until he grabs her
outside of the truck.
Cassie fires the gun, but Evan comes to her rescue.
He struggles with the man with incredible force and kills him in the end.
Cassie figures out something is off, so she threatens him with her gun.
Evan tells her that he's both human and alien - a sleeper agent created long before the
invasion started.
When the ship arrived in orbit, the alien part of him woke up.
Cassie asks him if killed his family, but Evan says it was the disease.
He tells her that, unlike his kind who don't believe in love, when he saw her he fell in
love with her and regained his human side.
Ben had been tracking Cassie before and when another hunter shot her, he killed him to
save her.
He is now a firm believer in love because of her.
Cassie prepares to shoot him when he tells her the truth about the army.
She walks off and Evan tells her that she shouldn't be armed when she gets there because
they'll kill her.
Cassie tells him that if he follows her, she'll kill him.
Meanwhile, Ben gets to a helicopter and back to the base.
Later, she fake falls in front of a school bus and they take her in.
Her number gets called and she gets the same treatment in the base from Reznik.
As she shows Cassie the alien, she hits Reznik over the head.
They struggle for a while, but Cassie kills her, then removes the tracker.
She takes her clothes and goes through the base looking for her brother.
Ben is at a briefing with Colonel Vosch, but he knows what the boy is up to.
He asks him what he knows and Ben says that he knows what they are, then realizes that
they will kill him.
Vosch says that humans did nothing to deserve what happened to them other than occupying
a space they needed, then faces him with another truth about humans.
Namely, that we've been doing the same things to others for centuries.
Suddenly, an officer comes in and tells them that Reznik has been killed, as well as three
guards at the west gate.
An explosion is heard from inside the base.
Vosch orders the child army to be deployed and for his officers to find out who's attacking
them.
Ben fights off and kills the soldier detaining him and takes off his tracker.
Simultaneously, Cassie is running through the hallways as another explosion hits.
Vosch orders drones to be deployed on the site so they can see who's attacking them.
Cassie runs into Ben and disarms him instantly.
They recognize each other and she tells him that she's looking for Sam.
Ben tells her that the army is the aliens and that they are deploying her brother into
battle.
He says that they need to get to him fast or she won't see him again.
Cassie trusts him and they go to find him together.
Two soldiers stop them when Evan shows up and incapacitates them.
Evan tells them that he planted the bombs and once the last of the planes with the kids'
leaves, he'll take the base down for good.
He's sorry that he lied to Cassie and says that he chose his human side because of her.
Ben and Cassie run to find Sam before Evan blows the base up.
They get to the transport lines only to find that all of the children are there.
Both of them move between the lines to locate Sam when Cassie finally sees him and gets
to him.
Ben shows them to an escape door and once they reunite Cassie gives him his teddy bear.
Ben takes his tracker out and they run out.
Simultaneously, Vosch is evacuating the base.
He sees Ben and the others running, gets in the helicopter, and goes after them, but he
doesn't manage to kill them before the base explodes.
Suddenly, Ringer and the rest of Ben's squad appear in an army truck and save them.
Cassie watches the base explode and thinks about Evan.
Later, the squad has set up someplace, resting and eating.
Ben talks to Cassie and asks her what they should do.
She says that they need to save the other kids, but she still doesn't know how to.
Ben tells her that they should worry about that the next day.
They join the others of the squad and hope for a better tomorrow.