Video Film The Host, watch here Now The Host (2013)
Action | Adventure | Romance - 29 March 2013 (USA)
When an unseen enemy threatens mankind by taking over their bodies and
erasing their memories, Melanie will risk everything to protect the
people she cares most about, proving that love can conquer all in a dangerous new world.
Director: Andrew Niccol Writers: Stephenie Meyer, Andrew Niccol
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger, William Hurt
The release of his latest film
sees him once again crafting lazy, simplistic sci-fi, this time
adapting a novel by bestselling hack Stephenie Meyer, but in addition to
being laughably bad, The Host may actually offer an answer to the
question above. What happened to turn the man behind Gattaca and The
Truman Show into a seemingly clueless boob who thinks shiny, silver cars
and idealized talk about mankind’s value are enough to qualify a film
as speculative fiction?
Having seen the movie the answer seems so obvious now. An
intergalactic jellyfish slipped into a paper cut fifteen years ago,
curled up around his brain stem, smothered his creativity, talent and
curiosity and then turned his body into a fleshy, bipedal rental car. And Niccol’s been fighting to be heard from the back seat ever since.
In The Host, Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) is on the run from a group of
alien-controlled post-humans led by the Seeker (Diane Kruger) whose
anger over a recent Quidditch loss has her more than a little bit
ornery. The girl jumps through a window choosing death over alien
occupation of her head space, but the invaders heal her damaged body and
insert a tentacled glowworm into her cranium anyway. The newly
christened Wanderer (still Ronan) awakes in human female form, but it
isn’t long before she begins hearing Melanie’s voice in her head
protesting the new arrangement.
Wanderer is tasked by the Seeker with dredging Melanie’s memories to
help ferret out the remaining members of the human resistance, but those
same memories also reveal to Wanderer the sensation of a human kiss and
of reaching first base. Her allegiances begin to shift as she starts to
see humans as the awesome beings they are, and she sets out to right
the wrongs of her species one French kiss at a time.
The remaining two thirds of the movie see more reflective cars, a
complete lack of effort in regard to world-building, woefully
inconsistent alien “tech,†a total disinterest in logic and the
introduction of cave people representing the last vestiges of humanity.
They include Melanie’s love interest Jared (Max Irons), Wanderer’s
love interest Ian (Jake Abel), a grizzled William Hurt and a bunch of characters we never really meet but will be asked to mourn for soon enough.
There’s so little to compliment here, but it can be summed up with
the honest recognition that it’s always nice to see Hurt and Kruger on
the big screen.
