Moretz, winsome and one-note, fights for the human race

[...] if this movie, starring Chloe Grace Moretz as the latest plucky teen to fight for our species, performs its appointed task with efficiency, it does little more.

[...] she's surrounded by more than one appealing young man (the YA action-film rulebook seems to dictate at least two, so we can have a triangle.) But the script has more than a few lines that should have been sent directly to rewrite, and there's a nagging feeling throughout that we've sorta seen it all before.

First all power and technology is knocked out; planes and cars crash.

When the U.S. Army's Col. Vosch (Liev Schreiber, inscrutable and calm here, perhaps a little too calm) orders youngsters onto a school bus to a military base, the family reluctantly agrees.

Evan's good looks, medical expertise and fighting skills almost make up for the fact that we can't figure out quite who he is.

The final act of the film sees Cassie and football player Ben (played by Nick Robinson, and recalling Nick Jonas) uniting to try to repel the evil forces from Earth.

The 5th Wave," a Columbia Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America "for violence and destruction, some sci-fi thematic elements, language and brief teen partying.