Movie Spotlight: The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave is a 2016 movie starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff, Alex Roe, Maria Bello, Maika Monroe, Liev Schreiber, and Zackary Arthur. It's based on a young adult novel by Rick Yancey. After an alien invasion has devastated the world, 16-year-old Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz) tries to rescue her 5-year-old brother (Zackary Arthur) before the fifth wave of attacks.

The 5th Wave is an unsettling movie about the horrors of alien invasion and a teenage girl's willingness to do whatever it takes to save her brother. It seemed more realistic than most alien movies (not over-the-top like a lot of them), and the aliens were real jerks. All of the actors gave great performances, especially Chloë Grace Moretz, who has been great in everything I've seen her in. : )

My rating: 7.5/10

Movie Spotlight: If I Stay

If I Stay is a 2014 movie starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Jamie Blackley, Mireille Enos, Joshua Leonard, Stacy Keach, Lauren Lee Smith, Liana Liberato, Aisha Hinds, Aliyah O'Brien, and Jakob Davies.  It's based on a 2009 young adult novel by Gayle Forman and is about a teenage girl hovering between life and death.  The film goes back and forth between the past and present, where Mia Hall (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her family have been involved in a car accident.  Mia has an out-of-body experience and sees herself lying on the ground and then being loaded into an ambulance.  Mia continues to have this out-of-body experience once she gets to the hospital, and she eventually finds out the fate of her mother (Mireille Enos), father (Joshua Leonard), and brother (Jakob Davies) while her physical body is still unconscious.

Chloë Grace Moretz is a great actress, and she did an amazing job in If I Stay; all of the other performances were great as well (especially Jamie Blackley as Mia's boyfriend).  I thought the movie might be depressing, but it really wasn't that depressing considering the circumstances, and it was very thought-provoking.  I'm not sure anyone can watch If I Stay without thinking about what they would choose if they were in Mia's situation.

My rating: 8/10

Movie Spotlight: Let Me In

Let Me In is the 2010 remake of Let the Right One In, which is a Swedish movie based on a book by John Ajvide Lindqvist.  The movie stars Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz, Elias Koteas, Richard Jenkins, Dylan Minnette, and Cara Buono, and it takes place in Los Alamos, New Mexico in 1983.  Bullied 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) befriends new neighbor Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz), who is also 12, "more or less," and happens to be a vampire.  I enjoyed Let Me In and was impressed with the performances of Chloë Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee...even though Abby kills people, I felt sorry for her because no one wants to be a vampire and be forced to kill people to feed, but she has no choice if she wants to live. My only complaint about the movie is that I would've liked to know more of Abby's back story, specifically how she became a vampire.  I decided early on in the movie that if Kenny the bully (Dylan Minnette) didn't become vampire food (or maybe "drink" would be a more accurate term) by the end of the movie, I would be really disappointed...I hope that real bullies aren't as mean as Kenny and his friends because these kids were willing to do potentially deadly things just to get back at Owen for standing up to them, and to me, that's scarier than any vampire.

My rating: 7.5/10

Movie Spotlight: Carrie (2013)

Carrie is a 2013 movie based on Stephen King's novel about a teenage girl who has telekinesis and a religious nutjob mother.  The movie stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Gabriella Wilde, Alex Russell, and Ansel Elgort, and since most people have seen the 1976 version, I'm going to include spoilers (so stop reading if you don't want to know what happens).  I know most people don't agree, but I liked this version of Carrie as much as the 1976 version...I like that they cast an actual teenager in this one and that they made the bullying more up-to-date by having Chris Hargensen (Portia Doubleday) film Carrie's humiliating locker room incident and put it on YouTube.  Chloë Grace Moretz did a great job as Carrie (I was impressed with  her when I saw her in Kick-Ass, which she filmed when she was 11 years old, and she keeps getting better), and so did Julianne Moore as Margaret White, who I still hated even though she was a little more likable than Margaret in the 1976 version.  Someone should've called child services on Carrie's mother a long time ago: she hits Carrie in the face with a Bible, locks her in a "prayer closet" for hours with creepy Jesus paraphernalia, and never teaches her about puberty, so the poor girl thinks she's dying when she has her first period in the locker room at school.

When Carrie gets upset or angry, strange things happen, like mirrors breaking and water dispensers exploding, so she does some research and concludes that she has telekinesis; she checks a few books out from the library and makes them float around her bedroom as her bed levitates.  When Tommy Ross (Ansel Elgort) invites her to the prom at the request of his guilt-ridden girlfriend Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde), Margaret forbids her to go, so Carrie makes her levitate, and the night of the prom, she locks Margaret in the prayer closet using only her mind.  At the prom, Carrie finally begins to feel like she's not a total outcast, but then evil Chris (angry that gym teacher Miss Desjardin (Judy Greer) has banned her from attending the prom after she refused to take the punishment she was dealt for her part in the locker room incident) dumps pig's blood on her, and all hell breaks loose.  When the bucket hits Tommy in the head and kills him, Carrie loses it, and her telekinesis causes fires to break out, killing many of her fellow prom attendees.  Chris and her boyfriend Billy Nolan (Alex Russell) leave the prom before this happens, but Carrie catches up with them and causes their car to crash, so they get what's coming to them (karma's a bitch, and so is-I mean, was-Chris).  Carrie runs home and seeks comfort from Margaret, who stabs her, so Carrie uses her powers to crucify her psycho mother, pinning her to the wall with knives and scissors.  Upset by what she has done, Carrie causes rocks to fall from the sky, eventually causing the house to collapse on top of them.

I really enjoyed Carrie and thought that certain aspects were better than the original movie.  If people want bullying to stop being such a problem, maybe every high school student should be forced to watch Carrie...would you bully someone after watching this movie?

My rating: 8/10