The 5th Wave (3 Stars)

I watched "The 5th Wave" in the cinema last year and I wasn't very impressed. Click here to read my review. I didn't think I would watch it again, but when I was browsing the Blu-ray bargain bin in Saturn, Stuttgart's largest media store, I found a copy for 2.99 Euros, so why not buy it? It didn't escape me that the fact a relatively new film is being sold so cheap is a poor testament to its quality.

In the film an alien race invades the Earth. They want the planet for themselves, and humans are in the way, so their intention is total genocide. The first three attack waves are carried out before the invasion itself.

1. An electromagnetic pulse knocks out all of the world's electricity, destroying civilisation.

2. Manipulating Earth's gravity sends tidal waves that destroy Earth's cities.

3. A genetically modified bird flu kills most of the world's population.

After this the aliens themselves invade to kill any remaining humans. Unfortunately they can possess humans by living inside their bodies and controlling them, so it's impossible to recognise them. The aliens, when we finally meet them, are polite and well-spoken, so they can easily adapt to human society. They're not belligerent creatures, for them it's just business. It's practical Darwinism. They're superior to the human race, so they have the right to kill anyone or anything who gets in their way. They never say why they came to Earth, but we can assume that they just needed a planet they could colonise.

After the first three waves the population is divided into three groups: the army, the adult civilians and the children. I'm not sure where the age limit is that separates adults from children. Chloe Grace Moretz, who plays the lead character Cassie Sullivan, was 18 when the film was made, but she could pass for 15 or 16. She's lucky that she was considered a child. The army rounds up and slaughters the adults, because they think that aliens are hiding among them.

Maika Monroe was 22 when the film was made, but with a bit of imagination you can accept her as a teenager. Only just. The army recruits and trains the children as elite forces in the battle against the aliens. It's not voluntary, they're all drafted against their will, but they're persuaded that it's necessary to save mankind. Maika plays Ringer, a bad ass dedicated soldier. Cassie doesn't trust the soldiers and manages to escape.

Let's talk a bit about some of the film's details. The first attack is an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). This has been a standard film trope for years. EMP's have been used in "View to a Kill" (1985), "Until the End of the World" (1991) and "The Matrix" (1999). Sometimes the electricity comes back after a while, sometimes it doesn't, depending on the film. People who watch films just assume that an EMP is something that stops electricity working, without asking any more questions. But what does an EMP really do?

An EMP can occur naturally (a lightning bolt) or be manufactured artificially (for instance, a side effect of an atomic bomb). The main result is a power surge. Where 20 Volts flowed previously 20,000 Volts or more flow for a short period of time. This is enough to destroy any unshielded electronic equipment permanently. Fires would break out. If the equipment is well shielded there might be a small disturbance, after which it would function again. I'm not a scientist, so I can't tell you too much about the subject. All I can say with any certainty is that the results of an EMP are erratic, not as clean as what we see in films. Some things would be destroyed permanently, some would cease to work temporarily, and some things wouldn't be affected at all.

But let's assume that the world's electricity is destroyed permanently, as in the film. That would be the greatest catastrophe that I could possibly imagine. For me personally it would be worse than the whole world exploding and killing everyone. If I had to live in a world without electricity I wouldn't know what to do. No computer. No Internet. No television. No recorded music. No telephone. I know that the human race lived for thousands of years without electricity, but I couldn't do it. I'm addicted to the comforts of electricity, and I'm sure many other people are as well. If I could no longer watch films and write my blog I would go insane. The television series "Revolution" (unfortunately cancelled after two seasons) deals with a world after electricity has suddenly, mysteriously stopped working. That's scary. Society might adapt. I personally couldn't adapt. I'm too old to learn how to live without electricity. It would destroy me.

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