Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that The 5th Wave is based on Rick Yancey's best-selling YA sci-fi alien-invasion thriller. Like the book, the movie features end-of-the-world catastrophes, deaths, and violence (mostly from bullet wounds, but also from natural disasters and a worldwide killer virus), but it's not quite as graphically violent as The Hunger Games trilogy. Focusing mostly on Cassie Sullivan (Chloe Grace Moretz), the story features about as much romance as the first Divergent movie (a couple of passionate kisses, the apparently requisite shot of a shirtless hunk) and a few uses of strong language (including one exclamation of "f--king," plus "s--t," "ass," "dumbass," "bulls--t," etc.). Cassie is a brave and determined main character, but fans of the book series will want to discuss whether the filmmakers fully captured her personality -- and those of most of the characters portrayed in the movie.
Sexual
Content
Main characters start kissing and lie down in a car, but there's no evidence they do more than kiss. Several scenes of teens staring at other teens' bodies (including one of guys looking at a girl's backside and another of a girl gazing at a guy bathing in a river -- his shirtless chest is visible).
Violence
People die or are injured from bullet wounds, natural disasters, explosions, and a killer virus that infects the majority of the world's people. The government enlists child soldiers to kill the enemy; at least one of them dies. Cassie kills someone she thinks has a weapon, but it turns out to be a cross. Fist fights and hand-to-hand combat. Some scenes show an entire field of body bags or dead bodies on side of the road, in front of houses, etc. Cassie's gunshot wound is bloody and requires suturing. She bleeds a lot and passes out (off camera).
Language
One "f--king" (exclamation) and a few uses of "s--t," "bulls--t," "ass," "dumbass," "Jesus!," "stupid," etc.
Social
Behavior
Like the book, the movie exalts the human virtues of survival, teamwork, hope, and love -- things that the aliens see as weaknesses but that the humans (and at least one Other) know are the driving forces of humanity.
Consumerism
Sony phone, computer, Dodge, Colt 45 handgun, ABC, CNN.
Drugs / Tobacco /
Alcohol
In the opening scene, Cassie's at a high-school party where everyone seems to be drinking beer.
