Now Playing: ‘The Host’ with the Least

Never have the aliens in ‘Independence Day‘ looked so smart. If you thought Stephenie Meyer ruined the vampire genre with ‘Twilight’, wait ’til you see what she does to science fiction with ‘The Host’.

What a dopey race of aliens inhabit the world of ‘The Host’. These have got to be the dumbest beings that the universe has to offer. Let me see if I can get this straight: These aliens are described as kind, non-violent and completely benevolent. If that’s all true, why do they snatch up human beings? Why do they seek out a pocket of human resistance fighters? What does a race of supremely kind beings gain from forcefully oppressing an entire species? Nothing about this story makes sense. The aliens are walking contradictions – except when they aren’t inhabiting human bodies. Then, they’re simply glowing amoeba-like contradictions.

This alien race has somehow successfully taken over most of the world’s population. The glowing amoebas have latched onto everyone’s brains and are now controlling them. However, they don’t use weapons and have no real strategy for capturing humans that have yet to be inseminated. Here’s their invasion plan: Surround a human and hope it doesn’t run away. This is the only successful invasion of Earth that has relied almost completely on the invading force’s ability to grab. Seriously, that’s their only offensive weapon. They never pick up guns. They never fight. (Most aliens are knocked unconscious with a single blow.) They can only surround the targets and hope they don’t escape. It’s a completely nonsensical storyline. At least the ‘Independence Day’ aliens felt the need to bring spaceships, lasers and computers compatible with Macs.

Making matters even worse, the movie is dismally uncreative when it comes to science fiction. The most sci-fi this movie gets is dressing all the aliens in white and plating their vehicles with shiny, mirrored chrome.

In the end, the whole alien invasion is a smokescreen for a patented Stephenie Meyer teenage love triangle. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) is one of the last remaining humans left. She’ll do anything not to get caught by the Seekers (what they call the aliens). However, that dream is short-lived when she finds herself surrounded by grabby aliens, so she jumps out a window, hoping to keep her friends and family safe. The aliens inseminate her and suddenly Melanie’s body is taken over by an alien life form that calls itself Wanderer. But Melanie isn’t gone.

I was afraid that this would happen. Even though I really liked Saoirse Ronan in ‘Hanna‘ and ‘Atonement‘, she can’t pull off this ridiculous premise. Most of the movie’s interminable 125-minute runtime is devoted to Wanderer having internal conversations with Melanie. Really, the entire movie is her talking to herself. I’m not joking. It’s just as bad as it sounds, trust me.

Since this is a Stephenie Meyer story, the love triangle is eminent. Here, Wanderer and Melanie both fall for different guys. Again, the plot is just as terrible as it sounds. Two guys fight over the same girl, just like ‘Twilight‘, except that this girl is actually two girls. Scratch that. One girl, one galactic amoeba.

The movie inspired scoffs and awkward laughter from a crowd full of Meyer fanatics at my screening. Deadly serious moments were met with unintended chuckles. The movie is over two hours of teenagers pining for each other during one of the most mundane alien invasions ever conceived, and that’s about all there is to it.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

9 comments

  1. I wonder if Meyer’s fans will ever be convinced that she’s not a good author? There are so many brilliant authors out there and this woman is stealing away all the recognition and glory and money they should be getting instead of her!!

    • RollTide1017

      This is why she is so popular, she’s not a good author so, what she writes is simple to read and doesn’t take much thought. Not having to think is very popular these days with the teens.

  2. Meyer cashed in on the vampire craze. Hopefully The Host is the last time we see Meyer’s work.

    From the trailer I thought this movie was going to be a action packed thriller. But the first 50 minutes of the movie was devoted to the girl talking to herself as she struggled against the control of the invader. The movie made futile attempt to create drama. Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds was ten times better than this. That’s how bad The Host is! They did a great job producing a trailer that suckered people into watching the movie.

    Of the movies I watched this year, Upside Down was a better movie than The Host.

  3. William Henley

    I actually relented and finally started reading Tilight – years after seeing the first two movies (or rather, sitting in a dark room next to a cute girl who dragged me to them). Here is what I found out – the Twilight books are actually good – REALLY good. Yeah, it is a teenage love story, but the books are actually really well written. I went back and looked at the movies – yep, still crap.

    In fact, after reading the books, I am more disgusted with the movies than I was before – they had a great story to work with, and a great cast of SUPPORTING actors, but then they cast Kristen Stewart as the lead character (although, considering that the character is supposed to be this hurt, troubled, misunderstood teenager, I guess that does fit Stewart’s emotionless acting abilities), and then gave this great IP to the worst director in existance. I honestly do not know why the movies were so popular – if you didn’t read the books, the movies were boring, if you did read the books, you should be pissed off with how crappy of a job they did converting it to a movie.

    “The Host” is the next on my to-do list – I have heard rave reviews about the book, and this is from guys who hated Twilight.

    Sounds to me that they just need to stop making movies off of Meyers works. Except they make money. And girls between the ages of 8 – 25 just love them. I wish I could say “I watch a Meyers movie with you, you watch Star Trek with me”, but I get “Go watch Star Trek with your buddies” to which I respond “go watch Meyers with your girl friends” to which she responds “I think this relationship is over”.

    What does that mean? It means that I better just shut my trap and sit through two hours of crap every year if I expect to stay in a relationship.

    • Aaron Peck
      Author

      I have to respectfully disagree. The books are terribly written. I attempted to read the first book and couldn’t get past the first chapter. Meyer’s prose, plotting, and characters are beyond juvenile.

  4. Ralph

    I saw “The Host” two weeks ago at a private screening. The trailer and TV ads portrayed it to be a sci-fi actioner but knowing Meyer’s work, I knew it was going to be a romance too. I was disapointed that it was another romance hidden inside a genre film without any hint of the genre.

    I mean, there isn’t even a portrayal of the invasion: the movie starts with the Earth already taken over. Another thing: the remaining humans weren’t even revolting against the aliens. They were hiding. Why would the aliens even bother finding them?

    The film was just boring. The dialogue was horrible. The most action in the entire movie was a car flipping down the highway with the cause defying the current laws of physics. I actually nodded off a couple of times and I never do that. The lead up to the end was paved with convenient plot twists and the final scene was just a cash grab opportunity for a sequel.

    So Meyers has ruined the vampire genre, the werewolf genre, and now the sci-fi genre. Those of us that like zombies better watch out.

    • William Henley

      Oh oh oh – maybe she will pull an Anne Rice and start merging her series!

      Aliens come and release a horrible plauge on earth, turning half the population into zombies. They take over the other half. Spared from both because of their supernatual abilities, the Cullins and Blacks join causes to retake the Earth. As the Blacks use their super-human speed and tracking abilities to take on the slow-moving zombies, the Cullins have to fight their blood-lust as they have to suck the poisionous aliens out of the hosts bodies.

      Meanwhile, Jacob Black falls in love with an alien-zombie hybrid who is only 5 years old (okay, I haven’t read all the books yet, but I am told Jacob does this in like the fourth book). Is it possible that she is the one who may truely save humanity?

      Throw in some witches, maybe a dragon…

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