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Eddie the Eagle: Mini-review

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Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman is a much better actor than a ski jumping coach

CIn an odd bit of cinematic yin and yang, one week after Race, a movie about perhaps the best Olympic athlete of all time, arrives in the theaters, another movie about perhaps the worst ever Olympian makes its début. But while Race at least attempts to accurately portray Jesse Owens’ Olympic quest, Eddie the Eagle flies far away from the actual life story of British ski jumper “Eddie the Eagle” Edwards and makes a critical crash landing as a result. 

Taron Egerton plays Edwards, who became a celebrity for finishing dead last in ski jumping for Great Britain in the 1988 Winter Olympics. In Eddie the Eagle, Edwards is depicted as an almost completely untalented klutz with an enormous desire to become an Olympian. With no coach, no experience, and no money, he goes to a training facility in Germany, where he eventually attracts the attention of Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), a washed-up, alcoholic, former Olympian who agrees to train Edwards.

The real life Eddie the Eagle was a moderately talented amateur athlete who simply wasn’t of Olympic caliber, except by qualifying in an event in which Britain hadn’t competed in over 50 years. That story endeared him to his countrymen and the Olympic crowds, but it apparently wasn’t sensational enough for director Dexter Fletcher and his screenwriters. Instead, they transform Edwards into a hapless buffoon who stands on top of a moving minivan and mentally prepares himself for his jumps by fantasizing about having sex with Bo Derek. By scrapping Edwards’ life story (and completely inventing the character of Peary), the filmmakers turn Eddie the Eagle into an English version of The Bad News Bears. Sadly, the endless clichés detract from the real drama in the film, the prospect that Edwards could break his neck at any time. Fletcher does manage to make that point, thanks to some often spectacular ski jumping footage and stunt work. Fortunately, the movie does capture Edwards’ natural charisma, thanks to a winning performance by Taron Egerton. In addition, Christopher Walken adds some badly needed dramatic weight when he shows up in a surprisingly subdued and effective last act cameo as Peary’s former coach. But all the acting talent and amazing camera work in the world can’t overcome a completely formulaic, poorly executed story. In the moviemaking Olympics, this bad plot form costs Eddie the Eagle any chance at a medal.     
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Risen: Mini-review

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Joseph Fiennes

Joseph Fiennes rises to the challenge of Risen

BFaith-based films have failed to generate much of a response from mainstream movie audiences for two reasons: either they treat the subject matter in too heavy-handed a way, or they are saddled with a miniscule budget and inferior talent on both sides of the camera. Risen is that rare exception, a faith-based film that boasts a solid lead performance by Joseph Fiennes, decent production values, and, most important, a low-key, yet reverent, approach to the material.

In a marked departure from traditional films about the life of Jesus, Risen uses commonly accepted  accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to Heaven but views the events from the point of view of a Roman tribune, Clavius (Fiennes). Pontius Pilate (Peter Firth) dispatches Clavius, first to keep order at the crucifixion of Yeshua (as Risen refers to Jesus), and then to discover what happened to the vanished body. Clavius’ investigation leads him to a house where he actually sees Yeshua (Cliff Curtis). Deeply troubled by his discovery, Clavius then follows the disciples to the Sea of Galilee where he again encounters Yeshua.

The first half of Risen resembles a Biblical version of CSI, as the thoroughly professional yet quite world-weary Clavius attempts to follow up on leads and interview witnesses. Although director Kevin Reynolds accepts the Biblical version of the resurrection and its aftermath, he takes care to present Clavius as a rational non-believer who, when confronted by seeming physical impossibilities, does his best to resolve them. At times, the script assumes an audience knowledge of some of the more obscure Biblical events that may confuse some who aren’t already overly familiar with Scripture. As a result, the investigation sequence occasionally drags. But Risen regains its footing in the more overtly religious later scenes. In doing so, the movie avoids passionate sermonizing; instead, Yeshua delivers the relatively limited amount of Scriptural teachings to the disciples as casual, yet effective storytelling. Risen doesn’t whitewash its historical material either. The depictions of the crucifixion and a pitched battle at the beginning of the film test the bounds of the PG-13 rating. The movie keeps a sense of humor as well, with self-aware jokes like having numerous Roman soldiers admit to Clavius they were well acquainted with Mary Magdalene. Risen isn’t likely to convert any non-believers or have the same emotional impact on them as on Christian faithful, but it’s an effective, entertaining film that accomplishes the seemingly impossible feat of putting a new twist on the Greatest Story ever told.  
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Race: Mini-review

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Jason Sudeikis

Jason Sudeikis plays a serious role for a a change

C-The only really surprising thing about Race, the biodrama about Olympic hero Jesse Owens (Stephan James), is that it took a major studio 80 years since Owens’ greatest feat to make the movie. Otherwise, Race, is a slick, well-made but ultimately by-the-numbers look at both the man and the extraordinary historical events surrounding his accomplishments.

Race does give the audience a look at Owens’ personal life, including his eventual marriage to Ruth (Shanice Banton), the mother of his child, after a brief dalliance with a groupie, as well as his training under Ohio State track coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis). But the movie also devotes significant time to the U.S. Olympic Committee’s decision whether to send a team to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and Owens’ personal decision whether to participate, in light of the Nazis’ rampant anti-Semitism. Even in the United States, Owens experiences the open racism of the Ohio State football players and the fans at various track meets.

Director Stephen Hopkins and his screenwriters faced some difficult choices about what aspects of Owens’ life and times they could cover in a two-hour movie, especially considering the fact that Owens’ running events only lasted 10 to 20 seconds each, making it nearly impossible to generate drama or suspense from them. Some of the lesser known material in Race is surprisingly effective, especially the  unlikely friendship that developed between Owens and German long jumper Luz Long (David Kross), who gave Owens some advice that helped him win the Olympic long jump. The disagreement between AAU President Jeremiah Mahoney (William Hurt) and future U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons) about U.S participation in the Games doesn’t seem initially to warrant much screen time, but its inclusion eventually pays off when Brundage is forced by Nazi officials to remove two Jewish athletes from the relay team, a decision that eventually resulted in Owens winning his fourth gold medal. Unfortunately, there’s extraneous material in Race as well, most notably a segment about documentary filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (Carice Van Houten), who records some of Owens’ Olympic feats. Similarly, the film sometimes overemphasizes Snyder’s role, although the rapport between Sudeikis and James is quite good. The end result is that Jesse Owens comes across as pretty much a generic nice guy who happened to be very, very fast, and, at the end of Race, the humiliating treatment he received on his return to America seems more like a tacked-on footnote. Jesse Owens was a world-class athlete who deserves a world-class movie; Race settles instead for a shiny participation trophy.    
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How to Be Single: Mini-review

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Rebel Wilson

Rebel Wilson plays the same character for about the 100th time in How to Be Single

C-The producers of How to Be Single undoubtedly are hoping that audiences will flock to see the film to get a glimpse at a new Sex and the City. What they will actually see, however, consists mostly of unformed story ideas that play like potential plot threads that got rejected in the first round of a Sex and the City brainstorming script session.

How to Be Single tells the interrelated stories of four single women in New York City. The main character is Alice (Dakota Johnson), who somewhat arbitrarily breaks up with her longtime boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun) and moves to the Big Apple, only to find her various new relationships equally unsatisfying. The only other remotely well-developed character is Alice’s sister, Meg (Leslie Mann), a doctor who gets artificially inseminated only to find herself attracted to Ken (Jake Lacy), a man 15 years her junior.

A movie solely about the love lives of Meg and Alice might have been fairly interesting.  Mann’s storyline is by far the most interesting, and she, as usual, brightens up every scene in which she appears. Johnson’s storyline is considerably more confusing because Alice clearly doesn’t know what she wants, and, worse, the writers don’t seem to know what her character wants either until the last five minutes of the movie. To its credit, How to Be SIngle then manages to end on a fresh, somewhat surprising note. Alas, Meg and Alice aren’t the only single women in the movie. There’s Lucy (Alison Brie), whose sole purpose seems to be explaining the nuts and bolts of internet dating to the audience. An even worse character in How to Be Single is Robin, Rebel Wilson‘s umpteenth variation on the same over-sexed character. Her purpose ostensibly is to provide comic relief and show the somewhat naïve Alice around town, but the only people who will find this character amusing are those who think that the very idea of overweight women enjoying sex is hilarious. Despite a few good scenes involving Mann and Johnson, How to Be Single never comes together as a coherent, consistently funny movie. Instead, it plays like an exercise in how to fail at movie making.
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Zoolander 2: Mini-review

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Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller looking far less ridiculous than he does in Zoolander 2

D+Sometimes, movie sequels are worth the wait. George Miller spent nearly 30 years developing Mad Max: Fury Road, and the result was one of the best films of 2015. And sometimes they aren’t. Ben Stiller waited 15 years after the original to make Zoolander 2, and the result is one of the worst films of 2016.

Zoolander was a satire on the fashion industry and, specifically, handsome but empty-headed male models like Derek Zoolander (Stiller) and his arch-rival Hansel (Owen Wilson). The sequel pretty much goes over the same ground, with the now over-the-hill Derek and Hansel teaming up with Interpol agent Valentina Valencia (Penelope Cruz) to investigate the assassinations of various celebrities, including Justin Bieber. Eventually, the trail leads to the villainous fashion designer from the original film, Mugatu (Will Ferrell).  

Stiller’s social satire was already on the way out in 2001, and it’s completely passé now, as nobody really cares all that much about high fashion in a social media world in which a single viral video can turn anyone into a trendsetter. Nor has Stiller found any suitable replacement targets for his barbs. Indeed, the opening segment, which pokes fun at Bieber and the selfie phenomenon, is about the only thing remotely resembling cutting edge satire in Zoolander 2. Lacking any good new material, Stiller doubles down on the idiocy humor, outlandish outfits, and celebrity cameos that occasionally worked in the original movie. However, he repeats the same jokes numerous times to increasingly lesser effect. He also adds a new character in Zoolander 2, Derek’s overweight, tweener son (Cyrus Arnold). This character allows Stiller both to insert tasteless, unfunny fat jokes into the script and, at the same time, hypocritically feign a theme of tolerance. Occasionally, the new material is funny, most notably in Kristen Wiig‘s hilarious performance as a designer who mangles the English language worse than she mangles fashion. Far more often, it isn’t, such as Benedict Cumberbatch‘s bizarre androgynous model named All. In a movie that glorifies stupidity, the single dumbest thing about Zoolander 2 was the decision to make the film in the first place.    
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Deadpool: Mini-review

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Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds without mask, still with sense of humor.

BThe mantra, “With great power comes great responsibility,” has become the theme, not just of Spider-Man, but of virtually every other modern-day movie and comic superhero as well. They may be all-powerful, but they rarely have much fun. Against such a backdrop of gloom and angst, Deadpool, the character, as well as the movie, is a gloriously excessive, frequently delightful exception.

Deadpool, the character, begins life as Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a cocky, profanity-spouting, quick-witted “merc(enary) with a mouth.” When he is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he leaves his hooker girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Bacarin) and undergoes a radical experimental treatment he thinks can cure him. Instead, the treatment turns Wade into a horribly disfigured mutant with remarkable healing powers. Wade escapes from Ajax (Ed Skrein), an arms dealer who devised the treatment and wanted to sell Wade as a superpowered slave. Then, as the costumed Deadpool, Wade seeks his revenge against his former captor. 

Although Deadpool‘s origin story is as grim as they come, the movie itself is a lighthearted romp, thanks to Ryan Reynolds, who never takes his role seriously, and a script that’s filled with self-aware references and quips. Reynolds breaks the fourth wall frequently, addressing the audience directly and poking fun at himself and the entire Marvel Comics universe in the process. Deadpool is the first film in years that lets Reynolds take full advantage of his fast-talking, snarky wit, and the movie’s R-rating means that much of the humor is hilarious yet unprintable. That rating also allows first-time director Tim Miller to cram the action scenes with stylishly shot, slow motion gore and carnage. However, Deadpool treats Wade’s romance with Vanessa (a character who is as quick-witted and foul-mouthed as Wade) seriously enough to keep the movie from becoming totally silly. Still, Reynolds’ non-stop barrage of foul-mouthed humor wears thin after a while. Fortunately, the final showdown, pitting Deadpool and a couple of mutant allies recruited from the X-Men franchise against Ajax and his superpowered henchwoman Angel Dust (Gina Carano), provides just the right blend of humor and action. That blend makes Deadpool unlike any other comic superhero film out there and may well breathe new life into an increasingly overwrought and predictable genre. 
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The Choice: Mini-review

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Benjamin Walker

Benjamin Walker is a popular choice here.

D+By now, almost all Nicholas Sparks‘s works seem the same, with incredibly attractive couples, enticing Southern locales, and problems that conveniently resolve themselves in the third act. So it takes something truly extraordinary to make a Sparks film stand out from the routine crowd. The Choice manages to do just that, but not in a good way. Instead, an incredibly wrong-headed plot twist makes it the only Sparks film that’s genuinely disturbing to sit through.

For the first three-quarters of its running time, however, The Choice is standard issue Sparks. Happy-go-lucky Travis Palmer (Benjamin Walker) initially butts heads with his new neighbor, doctor-to-be Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer). Eventually, they fall in love, but Gabby’s feelings are tested when her fiancé, wealthy but dull doctor Ryan McCarthy (Tom Welling) returns from a lengthy business trip.

As Sparks couples go, Travis and Gabby make a good pair. Walker and Palmer have a laid back chemistry with each other that’s quite evident, and director Ross Katz does not rush matters but, instead, takes every opportunity to show off the Carolina low country scenery and his highly photogenic lead actors. A night-time boat ride Travis and Gabby take to a secluded romantic beach is corny but particularly effective. Then, The Choice completely falls apart. I won’t reveal the plot twist (although the movie’s first scene pretty much foreshadows it), but it’s a cheap, low attempt to add “serious” emotion to the movie. Although the film sets the stage for these developments by introducing solid supporting and supportive characters, including Travis’ father (Tom Wilkinson) and sister (Maggie Grace), Katz squanders any chance of genuine emotional depth by rushing through several years in the lead couple’s lives in a single hackneyed montage that leaves no doubt about what’s going to happen. The result is a predicament that leaves the audience nearly devoid of any emotional involvement with the characters and, at the same time, feeling obviously and insultingly manipulated. Further, it’s a predicament that the movie resolves in the worst way possible as far as maintaining any credibility is concerned. It takes only 30 minutes for The Choice to turn pleasantly bland Sparks pablum into nauseating bile. Even in a Valentine’s season devoid of romantic film alternatives, audiences should choose to avoid The Choice.   
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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Mini-review

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Lily James

No doubt about it, Lily James was meant to wear period clothing

CIf there was a truth-in-packaging Oscar, there’s no doubt next year’s winner would be Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Because that’s exactly what the movie delivers, healthy doses of the Jane Austen classic, including actual dialogue, mixed with even unhealthier doses of the walking dead.

Zombies imagines Austen’s England overrun by a plague of zombies. Exceedingly wealthy Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley) commands the local militia charged with finding and destroying the zombies. He clashes with Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James), who, along with her sisters, has received extensive combat training in the Orient and can hold her own against the undead. Eventually, they team up to prevent a zombie attack on London itself and, while doing so, realize their true feelings for each other. 

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies takes the Austen classic and transforms it into a one-joke film by the at-times clever insertion of well-known zombie tropes. Many of the plot points in Pride and Prejudice work surprisingly well in the movie, Thus, the mysterious illness that strikes Elizabeth’s older sister Jane (Bella Heathcote) is even more alarming because everyone fear she may be infected and transforming into a zombie. Of course, the animosity with an undercurrent of desire that marked the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy in the book has already been copied hundreds of times already in literature and films, but having the pair actually test their martial arts skills against each other takes their rivalry to an entirely new level. Unfortunately, the movie’s joke wears thin eventually, primarily because the actors play their roles completely straight (with the exception of a delightfully foppish Matt Smith as Elizabeth’s other suitor, Parson Collins), and, instead of laughs, the film elicits mostly wry grins and occasional chuckles. Even viewed as a horror film, Zombies is a disappointment. The Bennet sisters are feisty enough heroines, but director Burr Steers never gets the hang of the action scenes. The film’s PG-13 rating requires judicious pruning of the gore that fans of The Walking Dead are used to, and what’s left of the action is repetitive, confusing, and often hard to follow. Ironically, stars James and Riley seem quite at home as Austen characters and have great chemistry together, but, far too often, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies never comes to life.
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Hail Caesar: Mini-review

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George Clooney

A more modern looking George Clooney

B+There’s no such thing as a typical Coen Brothers movie, but Hail Caesar, their first true comedy in a decade, may be their most schizophrenic ever. It’s both a wicked satire of Hollywood, the studio system, and life in the 1950’s and also a loving homage to all the above. Not to mention that it’s probably got better musical production numbers than any actual movie musical in recent memory.

Hail Caesar recounts a hectic two days in the life of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a studio fixer who’s responsible for solving problems both on and off the set. Eddie’s got more than his share of problems here, most notably the kidnapping of superstar Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), who’s starring in a multi-million dollar Biblical epic that’s behind schedule. In addition to his usual daily routine of calming down temperamental actors and directors, Eddie now has to pay a ransom for Whitlock and keep the disappearance quiet.

Tight plotting is seldom a priority with the Coen Brothers, and Hail Caesar plays more like a series of sketches than a single movie. The best bits involve the filming of various fake movies on the studio set. An excellently choreographed production number (highlighted below) featuring Channing Tatum and a male chorus line of sailors getting ready to ship out has blatant homoerotic overtones of which the cast and crew are seemingly oblivious. In another terrific sequence, an obnoxious auteur European director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes), regrets the studio’s decision to cast singing cowboy Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich, a standout in the ensemble cast) as the lead in a high society romantic comedy. The Coens let that scene play out well past the initial punch line of Ehrenreich mangling his lines so they can catch every bit of Fiennes’s rapidly increasing annoyance. Some of the satire in Hail Caesar has a more topical edge. Whitlock’s kidnappers turn out to be a group of blacklisted screenwriters who give the actor an economics lesson that manages to skewer both capitalism and communism. Of course, in a movie as scattershot as Hail Caesar, some of the comedy is bound to fall flat, such as a storyline about a pregnant cinematic mermaid (Scarlett Johansson). Still, the film is a delightful trip down memory lane, both for the bygone days of Hollywood and the Coens’ earlier zany comedies like O Brother Where Art Thou.    
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The Finest Hours: Mini-review

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Chris Pine

Chris Pine on dry land

B-The mini-mini-review of The Finest Hours sounds like a children’s riddle. The movie is on solid ground when the action is out at sea, but it gets waterlogged quickly in the scenes on dry land. The reason that The Finest Hours is so bifurcated is no puzzle, just a cliché-laden screenplay with cardboard characters.

The Finest Hours recounts the true story of the 1952 rescue of some 30 crew members of the SS Pendleton, an oil tanker that split in two a short way off the coast of Massachusetts during a major winter storm. By the time the Pendleton foundered, most of the available Coast Guard personnel had already left their station to rescue survivors from another sinking tanker in the area. Another small rescue boat, captained by Bernie Webber (Chris Pine), headed to the Pendleton, while its crew, led by engineer  Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck) struggled to keep the pumps going until help arrived,

The rescue of the Pendleton‘s crew is rightly considered one of the Coast Guard’s finest moments, and, for once, excellent CGI effects are actually necessary to convey the scope of what actually occurred. A 36-foot boat battling 50-foot waves before trying to pull alongside half of a 500-foot freighter has to be seen to be believed. The human element of The Finest Hours is far more of a mixed bag, though. Casey Affleck is fine as Ray in a subtle, low-key perfromance, as he assumes command and quiets the predictable cries of impending doom. However, the script saddles Bernie with a completely unnecessary backstory involving his hesitancy to marry his girlfriend Miriam (Holliday Grainger), who then shows up at the Coast Guard station to shrewishly browbeat Bernie’s commanding officer (Eric Bana) for sending her husband out on what could be a suicide mission. Not only are these events totally fictitious (Webber actually had been married for over a year when the rescue occurred, and his wife never showed up at the station that day), but they aren’t even good melodrama. Director Craig Gillespie should have trusted the inherent strength of his incredible but true story that had more than enough real drama. Grainger’s entire storyline, which includes a meet-cute prologue seemingly straight out of a Gene Kelly postwar musical, should have landed on the cutting room floor. The Finest Hours is fine enough without her. 
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Kung Fu Panda 3: Mini-review

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Jack Black

Jack Black is only slightly less animated here than in Kung Fu Panda 3

BJust as many people consider American Chinese food to be comfort food rather than gourmet cuisine, Kung Fu Panda 3 is a comfort film rather than any sort of animated classic. It’s got lots of cartoon action, colorfully drawn characters, familiar voices, and just a touch of real emotion here and there. Put them all together, and you’ve got the perfect remedy for the January movie blahs. 

As in the earlier Kung Fu Panda films, Jack Black returns in this latest sequel as the voice of Po, an awkward appearing panda who has become China’s greatest kung fu master. Despite his earlier martial arts success, Po is still unsure of himself and goes off with his biological father Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) to visit the legendary Secret Panda Village where he was born. However, trouble soon follows, in the form of Kai (J.K. Simmons), an angry bull who has returned to earth from the spirit realm intent on defeating all the other kung fu masters and becoming the greatest of them all.

In some ways, Kung Fu Panda 3 shows signs of an aging franchise, most noticeably in the by-now somewhat stale, fortune-cookie-level philosophy at the film’s core. However, the movie adds a few new elements, and, more important, elements based on the importance of family that will appeal to both young and old viewers. Instead of merely recycling more elaborate fight sequences, Kung Fu Panda 3 shows some imagination by having the panda villagers help Po fight off Kai and his cohorts with a delightfully oddball array of defensive maneuvers. Although most of the cast from the first two movies return, most notably Po’s teacher, Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), they take a back seat to the panda newcomers. The one returning character with a really significant role is perhaps the least heralded, Po’s adoptive father Ping (James Hong). The strength of Kung Fu Panda 3 is its animation, with incredibly detailed characters like Ping, who is an exceedingly gangly goose. The best drawn character of all, of course, is Po, who has both a look and mannerisms that channel Jack Black perfectly. Combine that charming animation with a family friendly message and broad genial humor, and the result is a sequel that proves surprisingly lively despite the familiar material. 
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The 5th Wave: Mini-review

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Chloe Grace Moretz

Chloe Grace Moretz hopes to follow Jennifer Lawrence’s career path

CAudiences watching The 5th Wave can be forgiven if they have a strong feeling of déjà vu. Truth be told, the first half hour of 5th Wave resembles every CGI disaster movie of the last 20 years rolled into one, while the remaining 90 minutes resembles every YA dystopian sci-fi franchise of the last decade, as well as some popular TV series like The Walking Dead and Falling Skies.

The similarities to earlier franchises extend to the lead actress, Chloe Grace Moretz, who immediately calls to mind Jennifer Lawrence and Shailene Woodley. Moretz plays Cassie Sullivan, one of the few survivors left after a series of alien attacks nearly devastates the earth, The invaders are preparing their final assault, a “5th wave” consisting of aliens who appear human. The army recruits Cassie’s younger brother, along with other surviving children and teenagers, then hastily arms and trains them to detect and fight the infiltrators. In the meantime, Cassie and her mysterious, yet hunky new acquaintance, Evan Walker (Alex Roe), try to find where the Army has taken Cassie’s brother.

The 5th Wave is not a bad movie, merely a by-now overly familiar, unoriginal one. The film is based on a YA novel series by Rick Yancey, and perhaps those characters have greater depth, but here, Cassie is just a resourceful teen who transforms readily into warrior mode. She’s even the center of a similar triangle to that of The Hunger Games, caught between Evan and Ben Parrish (Nick Robinson), the high school jock she had a crush on back home. Of course, adults, in this case the army’s Colonel Vosch (Liev Schreiber) and Sergeant Reznik (Maria Bello), are not to be trusted. Even though there’s a major surprise reveal about one character at the end of the second act, none of the main characters are well developed or seem all that interesting. Director J Blakeson handles the CGI disaster effects and battle scenes well, but 5th Wave overloads the effects into the film’s first half hour. The open-ended conclusion implies sequels to come, but, by now, most audiences would rather see the earlier and fresher movies that inspired The 5th Wave than this 5th generation copy. 
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