SPOILER ALERT:

With optimism that “The 5^th Wave” would break the trend of movies to be worse than their book counterparts, movie-goers were once again disappointed.

Although author Rick Yancy was supposedly working with the producers for this movie, the three screenwriters still jumbled up every scene from the book to the point where everything was unrecognizable. It’s understood that it’s tough to fit an entire novel’s worth of characterization in just an hour and 52 minutes, but the full experience of Yancy’s acclaimed creation, including the nickname “Mayfly,” the boy Crisco, silencers, etc., was lost in the showbiz’s attempt to wow an audience.

Let’s get serious, who wants to see a movie without the hypnotizing love interest? Cassie, scared, and Evan, lumberjack bodied, who after long walks and hideous truth and then the acceptance and the trust, fall madly in love. Where was that? The movie included no buildup for the relationship and failed to include the scene where he shot her, which is the most critical part of the enemy versus friend element of the book. Their love was fake, forced and fast.

Another lost critical concept was Cassie’s entire background. In the movie, she partied and drank and talked to boys, when originally she was introverted. Her crush, Ben, had never given her a second glance, but in the movie he knew her name and recognized her in an instant after the invasion. Adding her party teenage lifestyle took away from the contrast the book made between the shy Cassie before and the confident Cassie after the alien invasion stole her childhood.

Throughout the movie, the scenes were extremely choppy. Finding the cohesion from one scene to another was difficult, but overall cinematography left something to be desired. During the water scene where Cassie is running from a flood (which did not even occur in the book by the way), the CGI artists, for some reason, decided it was fine for the rushing sea to resemble a cheesy cartoon program.

In golfing terms, it was a triple bogie: unrealistic character bonds, haphazard cinematography, and minimal connection with the novel that had carried so much potential.