“Her name is Melanie Stryder, she was born in Louisiana. Her family escaped the colonization…NO!” That’s Wanderer (Saoirse Ronan), an alien life form, being interrupted by Melanie (also Saoirse Ronan), the human she’s taken over to try to find what’s left of the resistance, in the science fiction adventure/romance film The Host.
In the future, Earth has been taken over and humans are almost obsolete due to an alien life form that takes over a human’s body and struggles to destroy his or her will and make the body its own. Melanie and her little brother are part of the resistance, and one night while trying to find some supplies in an abandoned hotel, they are forced to hide when Seekers start searching the hotel for humans.
To protect her brother, Melanie exposes herself and runs to lead them away. Realizing too late she has run into a dead end, Melanie decides to run out a window and plummet to her death rather than be taken alive.
However, Melanie will not die so easily and her worst fears come true when she becomes host to a living entity who calls itself Wanderer. At first, Wanderer is only interested in helping the chief Seeker (Diane Kruger) expose Melanie’s memories and find the location of the resistance. But just as Melanie’s body wouldn’t die, neither will her mind or her will. She constantly fights Wanderer’s attempts to unlock her secrets.
When Wanderer’s probing of Melanie’s mind uncovers the fact she has a brother who she almost sacrificed herself for, Wanderer is both shocked and moved by the discovery. Melanie begs Wanderer not to tell the Seeker what she has discovered – and Wanderer doesn’t.
Slowly, a bond begins between Melanie and Wanderer, and Wanderer decides to break free of the Seekers and travel to reconnect with Melanie’s brother and the resistance. This could spell doom for Melanie whose friends will know she has been taken by an alien (All humans who have an alien inside them have eyes that glow a bright light blue), and it could mean the end of the resistance because the Chief Seeker has become more determined than ever to hunt her down and end all humans.
Based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight books, The Host suffers from the same awful, ridiculous dialogue, stale one-dimensional characters and painfully cheesy love scenes that plagued the Twilight films. This is an unoriginal film that seems to have copied its basic premise from the excellent science fiction movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Saoirse Ronan gives perhaps her weakest performance to date as both Wanderer and Melanie. She has zero chemistry with both the leading men her two characters are supposed to be drawn to. However, when she’s playing opposite herself and portraying the inner battle between Wanderer trying to discover Melanie’s deep secrets and Melanie desperately trying to convince Wanderer to help her and not give her brother and her family to the Seekers, Ronan is very effective.
The only other performance worth mentioning in this dull and tedious mess of a film is William Hurt as tough, grizzled Uncle Jeb. It’s hands-down the best performance in the movie and the only character who actually gets a few decent lines. Hurt makes the most of his few scenes in the film, and it’s a true shame this character and his performance are in such a dull and predictable movie.
The set design, costumes, and special effects are nothing special and are sure to have the audience remembering much better science fiction adventure films such as The Matrix, Blade Runner and Mad Max.
Unoriginal and ridiculous, The Host is a sloppy, uninspired, and uninteresting film. Moviegoers should listen to the voice in their head and see something else.
GRADE: D
The Host opens in theaters on March 29, 2013 and is rated PG-13 for some sensuality and violence.
