With the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer has perpetrated unspeakable crimes against the written word, and the five films have been equally horrific for anyone who enjoys film. The only atrocity yet to be translated to the screen was her foray into sci-fi, The Host, which even fans would decry as her worst work.
When it was announced Andrew Niccol would tackle the futuristic film, a glimmer of hope appeared. After all, he wrote two of the best films of the '90s (Gattaca and The Truman Show), and his movies are always interesting if not flat-out amazing. Alas, The Host is certainly not amazing and, unfortunately, not even interesting.
For all the issues with The Host, chief among them a weak script and lousy acting, it's first and foremost boring. That's a real shame because if Niccol was writing at even half his usual level, this would have been a fascinating story with plenty of themes to explore. Instead, we're treated with the most basic version of the plot.
It goes like this: an advanced alien race peacefully invaded the Earth, overtaking the bodies of nearly every human. Since then, they've stopped global warming, wars, and traffic. Much like The Matrix, the "bad guys" don't really seem all that bad. Of course, the downside is the loss of free will, but this is an issue the movie has no interest in exploring. No, the most important thing is picking which boy to kiss.
The girl who's been taken over is Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), who went on the run since her dad opted to shoot himself instead of play host to an alien invader. She's had to look after her brother (Chandler Canterbury), but that took a backseat when Jared (Max Irons) rescued them. Now that she's been captured and implanted, she's trying to hide her memories from the alien inside her to protect her loved ones.
Here's where everything gets utterly dull and predictable: Melanie escapes the other aliens and leads her possessed body to her uncle's desert compound. No one trusts her because she's "one of them." The slight twist in all this is that the alien inside her falls in love with the brother of Melanie's boyfriend (Jake Abel).
This makes the film makes things needlessly complicated, but never in a way that gives it a deeper meaning. There was plenty to explore about being a person divided, but it all has to give way to a completely undeveloped and pointless love triangle.
Anyone who enjoys the shallow romance of the Twilight series will absolutely love this trash, but if you've still got a brain and control of your own body, stay far away.
