My Review: The Host (2/10)

"Choose to believe. Choose to fight. Choose to love. Choose to listen."

Choose to stay away from this movie, unless like me you enjoy watching terrible films once in a while so you can say how terrible they were and be more grateful for the great ones when they come along. So let me begin by saying how terrible the script was. Andrew Niccol was once a great writer (Gattaca, The Truman Show, and The Terminal), but I don't know what he was thinking when he decided to adapt this script. I mean he had a wonderful novel to work with (note the irony here please). The Host was written by Stephenie Meyer, the successful novelist that brought us the Twilight saga. Meyer has a huge following, which mostly consists of preteen girls, but I have to say that this film was a lot worse than the Twilight saga and not even her fans went to see this movie. I actually enjoyed some of the Twilight films, but The Host was just too much for me. If you've seen the Twilight films then you know how ridiculous the scenes with the werewolves communicating with each other through voice over narration was. The Host is essentially the same thing as we see the main character speaking to her body's host and basically having a conversation with herself throughout the entire movie. Oh and how can I forget, you have yet another love triangle here although this time it gets a little weird because despite the fact that there are two boys in love with a girl she is two separate persons, so basically it is a love triangle between four people in three bodies. If I hadn't seen Saoirse Ronan before giving such wonderful performances in films like Adaptation or Hannah I would've thought that this young actress was going nowhere. She is terrible here, but I assume it's because of the poor script she had to work with because this is the first time she disappoints. With strong material she has been mesmerizing and I know she has a great career ahead of her. Meyer will probably continue writing best selling novels thanks to her fan base, but hopefully they will stay away from adapting such novels. 

Our planet has experienced several years of peace thanks to an alien race that has invaded us and taken over our bodies as hosts. A few humans have been able to survive by remaining hidden forming a resistance movement. Some of the aliens are in charge of finding these humans and inviting new hosts to take over those bodies. The leader is known as The Seeker (Diane Kruger), and after capturing a young girl named Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) she puts a host inside of her known as the Wanderer. The Seeker asks the Wanderer to get into Melanie's head and extract information of the whereabouts of the rest of the resistance movement. The only problem is that Melanie doesn't make it easy for the Wanderer to make decisions on her own, and she slowly begins to convince the Wanderer to help her instead of the Seeker. The Wanderer/Melanie escapes and reunites with her uncle Jeb (William Hurt), her boyfriend Jared (Max Irons), and her little brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury) along with the rest of their community which remains hidden in some caves. At first they don't accept the host, but Jeb convinces everyone they should help her and they slowly begin to realize that the Wanderer has come in peace. Ian (Jake Abel) begins falling for the Wanderer, who they now call Wanda, due to her kind spirit, and thus complicating things between her and Melanie. Meanwhile the Seeker doesn't give up on her search and continues to pursue the remaining humans.

I think I have written way too much for a film I really didn't like at all. This will certainly be on my list for the worst films of the year and it could be in the top 3. The cinematography wasn't bad here, the film does look good and the scenery is beautiful, but it suffers from a weak story with terrible characters. I can't blame the cast for their performance here because they really didn't have much to work with. I don't think they took their jobs seriously and just went for the easy money. The only character I liked here was Jeb and maybe it had to do with the fact that William Hurt is a great actor. I still don't know why he agreed to star in this film, but he still managed to do a decent job. I've defended Niccol in the past because he has directed some great films, I even enjoyed his sci-fi film In Time, but I can't defend him here. The Host is a terrible film.