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. 

My Review: New Moon (9/10

(9/10) The wait is over for Twilight fans as the second film of the franchise is finally out and just like the first one it`s getting mixed reviews. The saga is based on Stephenie Meyer`s novel of the same name. Just like in the novel, there are going to be four parts and New Moon is the second one of the franchise. I really enjoyed the first Twilight, and thought that the action slash romance was well balanced and worked very well. When I heard Twilight was about vampires I was completely expecting it to be the typical vampire blood sucking movie, but I was suprised to see how different the film was. In New Moon I already knew what to expect, but I found it even better than the first one. I thought it had a lot more action and the addition of the werewolves was a plus because their characters were complex, interesting and it presented a whole new world that hadn`t been introduced to us yet the first time around. The romance also got better as Edward and Bella were seperated and a third character was thrown in the mix, Jacob. The friendship between Bella and Jacob and the mixed feelings of love and friendship that they felt was an interesting addition to the saga. It`s always good when in a film you have mixed feelings for which character you want him or her to end up with and in this case many of the fans were routing for a different guy and that is what explains so many status updates about Team Edward or Team Jacob.

I know this film is targeted towards teenage girls, but it has enough action and good vissual effects to be enjoyed by guys as well. I really thought the special effects were much better than in the first one and after watching 2012 I thought these effects felt cool and they just felt more real and not exagerated. The werewolf transformation scenes were pretty nice, as were the chasing scenes between werewolves and vampires. There is plenty of action for guys to enjoy as well although the first 20 minutes do feel a little cheesy. The dialogue is probably one of the weekest parts of the movie, but the story is just engaging and I guess most guys can identify with the Jacob character. We have all fallen for a girl that sees us as a friend who has always been there for her, but not as boyfriend material. Ouch. I don`t know maybe it`s just the teenage adolescent girl inside of me doing the talking. It feels kind of good of letting that repression out. The love triangle between Edward, Bella, and Jacob was a great addition to the franchise. There were several references to Romeo and Juliet and in a way this film has several similarities to the Shakesperean play (although they could have learned a lesson or two on how to write decent dialogues that didnt feel so cheesy) because of the rivalry between two families, in this case the werewolves and the vampires and somehow Bella is caught in the middle of both worlds.

Another improvement from Twilight were the villains. Micheal Sheen was great as Aro the head vampire of the Volturi (a sort of vampire royalty), and Dakota Fanning was also creepy in her role as Jane a pain inducing illusionist. These villains made you feel like the ones in the first Twilight were a joke. Kristen Stewart is also a delight to watch on screen and she makes the love scenes work despite the bad dialogues. The chemistry between her and Pattinson really works and you can feel the sexual tension between both chracters despite the awkward long pauses and stares. Taylor Lautner plays Jacob, Bella`s best friend who is in love with her and actually is a werewolf who haunts down vampires therefore the plot thickens. The rest of the Cullin family doesnt`t have much screen time as the main focus of the film is in introducing the werewolves and building the relationship between Bella and Jacob. I really enjoyed this movie and it will probably end up in my top ten films of 2009.