Please note that this is the first Stephanie Meyer-related film I have ever sat through. I would have fought against my better judgment to watch the Twilight series, but they were released before I was seriously thinking about reviewing films, so I had the free will not to subject myself to those. Here, however, I feel it necessary if I’m ever to be taken seriously as a reviewer to take on any movie no matter what the reputation or expectations surrounding it. That having been said, here’s my review of The Host.
It’s the non-specific future and humans have been taken over by a parasitic alien race called Souls who can only survive by inhabiting the bodies of other life forms. Nearly all of humanity has fallen prey to this. The latest victim is Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan). Melanie is implanted with a Soul who goes by the name of Wanderer (later shortened to Wanda). Where as most human souls die off after being taken over, Melanie’s survives, leaving her a prisoner in her own body, able to communicate only with Wanda. Wanda is shown all of Melanie’s memories and experiences, soon begins to empathize with her, and, as a result, decides to help her. They escape from the rest of the Souls and head back to the human resistance, led by Melanie’s uncle Jeb (William Hurt), which also contains her lover Jared (Max Irons) and little brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury). It’s now up to Wanda to convince the humans that she’s on their side and that Melanie is still alive and needs their help.
Now, allow me to take a moment and tell you what I won’t be discussing in this review. It seems that everyone is talking about the fact that this is yet another supernatural phenomenon turned into a teenage love story. At this point, I feel that is a tired argument. We’ve been complaining about that since the first Twilight came out, and everything new to be said about the topic has already been said, in my opinion. I want to look at this movie as if that aspect of it was okay. Because, love story or no, The Host is still positively atrocious.
I actually had a bit of a dilemma when trying to figure out how to configure this review. There are so many different problems I wish to address, so many complaints that I wish to rant about, and, honestly, if I did, many of you would probably lose interest in reading by the time you got to the 9th or 10th page. I will try my best to be concise, but, just know that there is SO much more to be discussed about this film than what I am about to offer.
The acting is not convincing in the slightest. The only one who’s even remotely trying is William Hurt, and he definitely manages to carry himself with some dignity, but what he’s given to work with is just not enough to help him through the part. Saoirse Ronan carries the burden of two roles, those of Melanie and Wanda. Granted, one of those is almost entirely voiceover, but that doesn’t help her case at all. Ronan fails to be compelling as Wanda, and it gets worse when Melanie’s voiceover is thrown into the mix. These two personalities argue and bicker throughout the entire movie, and it gets annoying very quick. The other actors in the movie are bland stereotypes and nothing more, so I will choose not to touch on them.
One thing that I must address is that all but one of the characters in this movie, aliens included, are complete morons. For example, evidently these Souls have gone from world to world trying to find the best species to inhabit, and each previous time, the other species had no issue coexisting with the Souls. The humans’ souls would essentially die when taken over, because humans are too weak to handle it. If that’s the case, why didn’t the Souls just stick with their previous hosts? It is mentioned at one point that they have conquered 12 different worlds. Surely one of those is better suited for this than human beings. And it’s poor, lazy writing and exposition like this that really hurt the film a lot. There are plenty more examples that I would love to discuss, but, as promised, I will keep moving along. On the flip side of this, while everybody else holds this level of stupidity, Melanie’s uncle Jeb might as well be a psychic. At several points, he is able to tell exactly what’s going on, like discovering a well-kept secret, with no evidence whatsoever, and purely by guessing. This happens far too often, and takes away from a lot of the potential suspense that the film is at least trying to build.
Literally nothing about The Host is believable. The acting is wooden, the writing is very jumbled and, at points, extremely laughable, and, worst of all, it touches on a very intriguing concept with which it then chooses to go absolutely nowhere. A race of alien parasites take over humans and actually prove to be more beneficial for Earth than the humans themselves? How could you POSSIBLY screw that up??? Well, somehow, Stephanie Meyer found a way. The Host is a sad excuse for a sci-fi film, a shame seeing as its director, Andrew Niccol, also directed Gattaca, which is a fantastic piece of science fiction. Somehow, he managed to go from that to this boring, uneventful, potential-wasting garbage that I cannot urge people enough to avoid. Please, for the safety of your brain cells, leave this one alone. And as always, thanks for reading!! :D
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