“The Host,” a silly teen romance with a sci-fi setting, is
based on a novel by Twilight author
Stephenie Meyer. Saoirse Ronan, who is better than the material she’s given,
plays a character of two minds. Literally. One belongs to teenage Melanie. The
other is that of a 1,000-year-old alien known as Wanderer (nicknamed Wanda) who
has taken over Melanie’s body. When Melanie is captured and her body is
surgically inserted with Wanda’s luminous, many-tentacled ‘soul,’ Melanie’s
powerful determination to reunite with her brother, Jamie (Chandler Canterbury)
and boyfriend, Jared (Max Irons), prevents her from relinquishing control of
her mind to Wanda. Melanie convinces Wanda to escape and they end up in
Melanie’s Uncle Jeb’s (William Hurt) community. Later, Wanda falls for Ian
(Jake Abel). Sort of like the triangle Meyer set up in Twilight, isn’t it? Been there, seen that.
Neither the romance nor the fantasy keeps the story from
becoming tedious. Director Andrew Niccol, who adapted Meyer’s novel, pulls off
some visual magic with the design of Jeb’s caves, but the aliens still use
desktop computers. Wouldn’t you think that they could communicate using just
their minds? With a running time
just over 2 hours, “The Host” is ridiculous and a waste of time.
1 comment:
This was just the Twilight story without the werewolves and the Vampires. Just awful!
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