Review of The Host (2015) by Robert H — 08 Dec 2013

This movie takes a pretty cool concept (with shades/elements of THE THING, TOTAL RECALL & INVASION OF THE BODY-SNATCHERS), but wastes it on a boring, cliche-ridden teen romance. In other words, it's typical Stephenie Meyer even down to the love triangle.

The first couple of minutes, with narration by William Hurt, lays the foundation with some promise. Some back-story is given explaining that aliens have invaded our planet, but instead of destroying it they take over our bodies like parasites.

Then the movie abruptly starts with Saoirse Ronan's character being chased. Being thrown into the story this way, the audience is never given a chance to really identify with or care about any of the characters onscreen, except for "shiny eyes=bad" and "normal eyes=good.

" That's it. What follows is one of the most rote chase movies I've ever seen with a couple of decent action sequences. However, most of the movie is just plain boring, with pointless philosophical pondering about the soul that the script never really earns.

And then the story is wrapped up in the most cliche "happy ending" way possible. To compound the problem, most of the movie was filmed in the New Mexico desert, which makes the film as equally boring to look at.

The soundtrack isn't much better, save for the Imagine Dragons song which leads into the closing credits. Beyond that, the only thing remotely good about the movie is the special effects. Bottom line, even with a few unintentionally funny moments, there is nothing here to recommend this film to anyone, even the intended YA audience.