Review of The Host (2013) by Anthony V M — 08 Dec 2013

The Host originally is a novel written by Stephenie Meyer, the same write who wrote Twilight. Tom Charity from CNN points out that the storyline of The Host borrows from Jack Finney's 1956 novel The Body Snatchers. He also points out that Saoirse Ronan is Melanie, another of Meyer's schizophrenic teenager who falls into the hands of the Souls and is possessed by an alien named Wanderer. Melanie's soul refuses to vacate her body and carries on an internal battle/debate with Wanderer for most of the story, and in my opinion is quite boring.

Script writer and director of The Host have set Ms. Ronan up into a french kissing lesson. It is my first time to see her doing french kissing scenes. She has been set up to kiss a couple of hot and young white guys in the movie and I can see her not yet master her french kissing skill. Apart from her disastrous on screen french kissing practice, the featurette show Ms. Ronan brave enough to do her own stunt like Jackie Chan. I definitely see the making of a young European Michelle Yeoh.

While Pacific Rim is a cool sci-fri thriller with heaps of illogical bits in the plot, The Host is a boring sci-fri movie which is not thrilling but also with a illogical plot. Just like Distinct 9 and Battle: Los Angeles, the aliens are surprisingly low tec except the "white light fiber optic trick". One of the low tec example in the movie is the "alien soul police force" drive the latest model Lotus couple in silver livery. They look cool and modern for normal human driver but for aliens, should they drive something with anti-gravity propulsion system?

Tirdad Derakhshani from Philadelphia Inquirer says The Host isn't very good as a romance and there's not very much passion on screen (as I said is just novice kissing practice with no emotion), which makes the film a poor cousin to Twilight.