MOVIE REVIEW - The Host

From the pen of Stephenie Meyer comes the adaptation of her novel, now a movie, The Host.  She gave us the Twilight series of book. This is more teen love stuff.

This is a tough thing to describe in tidy fashion, but here goes in a nutshell.   Earth has been invaded "body snatcher" style in the future.   This life form called "The Seekers"  now uses humans as their bodies. They use them as "hosts."  There still are some real humans that have not been found and taken over, they are called "the resistance."   These invaders have inhabited planets before, as they take over, and "perfect" the planet.  But trying to inhabit a human planet and human bodies and spirits is proving difficult.

This story is told through the life of Melanie.  She is a young woman who is finally captured, implanted with the invading life form, and now is a "seeker."  The rulers of this life form want to use her to help them locate other humans so they too can be taken as hosts.  But Melanie is strong, and there is an ongoing battle with her as she fights a continual battle in her own brain with Melanie still in there, and the new personality, called Wanderer..  You have to like to watch and listen to this young woman have ongoing verbal arguments with herself to enjoy this, as it is the bulk of what's going on here.

She finds other humans who have found refuge safely from the Seekers, and they take her in as some of them are family.  They can clearly see that she is now a seeker, but eventually they see that she is both Melanie and Wanderer..  They come to accept both parts of her, even though the seeker part is clearly a threat to their very survival.  Then enter two young, and hunky teen guys who decide to fight over her affections, as each one of them, is in love with both people inside of her.  (Saw that one coming, as it is Stephenie Meyer)

This then turns into a film of acceptance.  Can we all just get along?  Can we not just inhabit this planet and all live as one?   That is the attempted final message I think, but I'm not overly sure.  You see, as where I understand the book is very interesting, the movie is slow, and belabored.  It takes a long time to get to any message, if there really is one... in the movie version.

Being brutally honest, not much at all happens in this movie.  It is written in "teen speak" as Twilight was.  It is quiet and has a sense of melancholy that runs all through it as Twilight does.   Minimal action, and seldom even a raised voice, and barely any passion at all.  There is an incredble amount of repetitive dialogue that seems to always end up in the same place as the scene before.   There are some fresh faces in this movie and that's good to see. But for many all they will be able to see and hear is a slow and mundane pace of a story that may be far more interesting to read, than to see.   My sense is that your imagination while reading can paint a far better picture of this world and story than these movie makers can.

The Host.  Long and winding.  A sharper movie maker with a sharper razor blade could have done this better, edited it tighter and had a better picture.