The Host – Review

Film, Reviews, Theatrical Reviews, Top Story

Makes “Twilight” look like Shakespeare

Stephanie Meyer has seemingly made more money, and become a pop culture institution of sorts, by bringing out mediocrity as a high point. After the “Twilight” series turned vampires into misfits from a high school emo band she turned her pen to science fiction. And much like how she turned the creatures of the night into whiny, sparkly vegetarians she’s set her sights on aliens. Thus comes The Host, which is essentially Twilight but with sparkly aliens instead of sparkly vampires.

And I wish I was joking when I said sparkly aliens.

Humanity has been invaded and taken over by a group of aliens who inhabit human bodies and take them over. There is no war, no violence and no strife because human identity has been replaced with “the souls.” They’ve managed to take over nearly all of the human population but pockets remain. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) is on the run from a Seeker (Diane Krueger) doing her job. When she gets captured, and is implanted with her own alien, something happens that is unexpected: she doesn’t disappear inside the alien presence.

The Wanderer, as it calls itself, interacts with Melissa and is convinced into finding Melissa’s family. From there it’s a cat and mouse game as the Seeker keeps trying to find Melissa/Wanderer, and all that entails, as well as Melissa’s friends/family interacting with the Wanderer and not knowing how to handle it. In more developed hands it could be an interesting, if flawed, film.

The idea of being inside your own head, unable to control your actions or your words while something else goes through what should be your existence, is endlessly fascinating. And that’s why the book managed to find an audience, as well. There’s something to the concept that makes for an interesting take on the human existence in that regard.

Unfortunately it doesn’t translate to the screen … at all. The Host winds up being spectacularly hilarious if only because of how noxiously bad it is.

This is a film that’s desperately trying to replicate the “lightning in a bottle” that Meyer’s previous book cum film franchise had. You have a love triangle that’s further complicated by another factor to make it seem more interesting coupled with acting so awful it feels like a self parody. And not even a good one at that: this is the sort of film you’d make if you wanted to make fun of the Stephanie Meyer formula. If this hadn’t been written by Meyer it’d be an amusing parody. Sadly enough it’s a straight adaptation of one of her novels and much like the whole Twilight saga it’s filled with awful, awful, acting.

That’s the thing that stands out most about the film: the awful acting. This isn’t a bad cast, much like the Twilight franchise, but it’s clear where the talent lies. There’s Ronan, who could become an actress of extreme significance sooner than later, and a fairly solid supporting cast of character actors like William Hurt. And then there’s everyone else, cast mainly to appeal to teen girls and their homely older sisters in the same way Taylor Lautner was cast. It’s a cast that’s aesthetically pleasing but this is dinner theatre level acting.

The other problem with the film is the whole Melanie/Wanderer aspect. There are tons of great ways this could’ve been done, to simulate two people in one mind, but the easy way out (of crappy voiceovers) was chosen instead. It’s lazy and there are a number of other, better ways it could’ve been done. It gives the film a TV movie kind of feel instead of trying to do something new or original.

The Host winds up becoming so unintentionally hilarious that it falls into that same league of The Room as camp.

Writer / Director: Andrew Niccol, based on the novel of the same name by Stephenie Meyer
Notable Cast:
Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger, William Hurt, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Boyd Holbrook, Frances Fisher, Chandler Canterbury