The Host

What do you get when you team up Academy Award nominated writer/director Andrew Niccol, Academy Award Nominee Saoirse Ronan, and Academy Award winner William Hurt?  A somewhat watchable movie.  To say I went into "The Host" with low expectations is an understatement.  What I received was a film that is sometimes actually enjoyable (really!).

 

Because of the involvement of Stephanie Meyer, "The Host" tends to be brushed off as sci-fi "Twilight."  While that is kinda accurate, "The Host" handles that material about as well as anyone could hope for.  This is a movie about glowing, jellyfish aliens who inhabit the bodies of humans.  One girl's will to return to the boy she loves and her little brother keeps her from being completely overtaken.  So, she is trapped inside her own head and leads her alien-infested body back to the uninfected rebels.  The alien in her then falls in love with a different boy.  Cue awkward love triangle.

 

That's a hard plot to make well especially when the target audience is 12-14 year old girls.  As such, "The Host" has a weird obsession with kissing.  Adults watching this will be baffled by the way these characters view a kiss as the culmination of passion.  Again, this is a movie for very young girls.  What adults know about love and what pre-teens know about love differ greatly.  So if you're watching this with your kid, prepare to groan your way through a whole lot of almost making out.  But if you are the kid, prepare yourself for the heroine to kiss TWO TOTALLY HOT GUYS!!!

 

"The Host" is really just a checklist of bad romantic clichés.  It's hugely predictable, which is not really a bad thing.  I just don't want anyone thinking they'll be surprised or thrilled by this movie.  The dialogue is awful.  This kinda shocked me as Andrew Niccol's strongest suit is his writing.  Instead, we are treated to "sweet nothings" so dreadful, they'd make a romance novelist throw up.

 

But it's not all bad.  Niccol is not just a competent director.  He's got a great eye.  His art director and location scouts provide him with plenty of fodder for beautiful camerawork.  Some of his shots are far better than this movie deserves.  Saoirse Ronan does pretty well in a role that consists entirely of talking to herself and smooching dudes (but her Lousiana accent is awful).  William Hurt gives a good performance.  Diane Kruger is fairly good too.

 

One final thing that bothers me about the movie.  The aliens are the best thing that ever happened to humanity.  Seriously.  They are peaceful.  They do not lie or cheat or steal.  They do not kill.  They create a utopia where every person has food/shelter/medicine, and these stupid humans are fighting that.  Why?  Because they don't want to be aliens?  They want to continue to be brutal and violent?  Because they really are.  The rebels are everything that the aliens claim we are.  Some sort of reason should've been given to justify the human rebellion.  As it stands, they just want to be alien-free for the sake of being alien-free.  I kept hoping all the rebels would get caught and assimilated.

 

On the whole, you could do far worse than "The Host."  Especially if you have to watch movies your 13 year old daughter likes.  You may even find yourself liking some of it.  Just be sure to stretch your eyes before pressing "play."  You're going to be rolling them a lot, and I'd hate for anyone to get hurt.

 

5 out of 10