Review
‘The Host’ disappoints in every aspect
April 4, 2013
“The Host” has come to theaters as the next in Stephenie Meyer novel adaptions, but this appears to be a film series that will not see tomorrow.
In the future, there is no sickness, no violence, no need for money as Earth has finally been made perfect. It has also been overrun by aliens that are taking over human bodies in order to live on our planet. One such alien is known as The Wanderer, and, after being put into a new body, it is finding the human hard to control, for its owner, Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) is fighting with the alien for control of her own body and mind.
The Wanderer is then tasked by her superior, The Seeker, to plunge into Melanie’s memories so that they can find more humans to indoctrinate, but The Wanderer is plagued by Melanie’s thoughts and urges, and is growing more sympathetic toward her. With Melanie trying to use her body to get back to one of the last human settlements and find her lover Jared (Max Irons), The Wanderer will have to go along and find out if co-existence between her species and the humans can be possible and if they can go beyond simply being hosts.
It’s a movie based off of a Meyer novel: that should be all I need to say on my expectations for this movie, as I have seen what “Twilight” became, and the various ups and downs it gave audiences. Likewise, “The Host” does not offer much in the way of any kind of story, intrigue or entertainment.
The plot of “The Host” is odd and confusing. The aliens that take over all of Earth have a mantra that violence is not needed, so it raises the question of how fast they were able to take over the Earth and how. We are even shown very early in the movie that they are fairly incapable in taking down a human when even the human can go up and smack the aliens in the face.
It really deadens the threat these aliens hold when they serve no physical way of hurting you.
Their whole invasion makes the plot of the aliens from “War of the Worlds” better thought out.
That was the sci-fi aspect of the movie, and it straight up fails at it.
The movie also has a heavy romance end to it, but it even fails in that respect as the relationships feel underdeveloped and unrealistic.
When you realize the love characters feel for each other is only due to the feeling of isolation felt by them it then brings the whole thing down.
Direction-wise, the movie isn’t all that great either. Music and camera work all fade into the background, but the handling of Melanie’s voice in her body’s head is the most baffling directorial choice in this movie. Since Melanie cannot be seen in the movie, she has to relay all of her feelings and thoughts through voices in The Wanderer’s head. It demotes her role from woman whose free will was taken from her to annoying video game sidekick.
But even after all I can say about how bad the plot is, how the romance and sci-fi aspects don’t work, the worst sin this movie commits is that it is just boring.
There is no real suspense, no drama, no intelligence put into this story or movie, and it felt so pointless in all that it was trying to throw me that I was ready to just walk out half way through.
“The Host” is simply not a good movie. So much doesn’t work that I can’t say who this movie is for, because I believe even the fans of the book would not enjoy it.
It’s the kind of movie you can only just laugh off, and even then it didn’t deserve your attention to begin with.
Ryan Funes is a lover of all things movie, TV, video games and stories and wants to become a television writer someday. In his spare time he enjoys hanging with friends, tapping into his imagination, and watching cartoons of all kinds.