It sucked!

D-

Saoirse Ronan is very good, the movie is not. It's not horrible and it's watchable but not very engaging. The voiceover of Melanie totally felt out of place throughout the movie, and the main conflict of the souls trying to find the humans didn't really have the kind of danger a movie like this needs. Even the 'romance' angle to it was relatively weak.

It's certainly not worthy of a sub-15% score on RT but like Niccol's last movie In Time, it's not anything noteworthy.

Andrew Niccol will never have a mainstream hit. Who knew a Stephanie Meyer adaptation would miss?

Oh yeah, everybody.

I really liked In Time

THE HOST

I was hesitant to watch it due to the horrible rottentomatoes % but decided to view it anyway. It had been described as Twilight-lite. I didn't find this terrible. There were some lines which were a bit eye rolling and the end with Wanda being spared conveniently with a beautiful woman was over the top. I would have preferred her to have just died. I thought the actors were fine and the story was pretty interesting in terms of the Hosts and what they do and how they operate. Overall, I thought it was okay. Good enough for me to enjoy this afternoon but nothing more.

Grade - B

That's because it was awesome yo.

I thought so too.

I thought In Time was garbage, which was unfortunate given how awesome it looked.

BJs Grade:

C+/B-

Better than expected after the ghastly reviews. Reasonably well acted, especially from Ronan, script was a joke though, and the Direction was straight up lazy. Sad since the book really could have made a well above average movie.

How do you all think they should have handled the Voiceover situation? There has to be a better way than what they ended up doing.

I thought they handled the two voices fine. I don't think you can do it any another way without it appearing ridiculous. I could only think of a image of melanie's head when she's speaking around Wanda or some image of her head on the screen somewhere representing her trapped mind. It just would be ridiculous to see that imo.

I think what would have worked more is if Melanie's voice was personified as another body that only Wanda could see, having her on the side talking to her rather than having a cheesy voice out of nowhere.

The Host is carried by it's director, it's writer, and it's lead.

Going the alien road less travelled, the story is soberly sophisticated hard sci-fi intertwined with low-key off beat humor and gentle romance.

Andrew Niccol is still battin' a thousand - - five for five. Stephenie Meyer pulls a brilliant meditative story out of nowhere. Saoirse Ronan is ever watchable, a superb actress who's already part alien.

...and it's a grrrrrlll power flick to boot!

I adore The Host.


295 LY out of 5.

Didn't realize that director did this. Add in the Bradley stamp of approval and I'll have to go to this...

The Host is carried by it is director, it is writer, and it is lead.

Now, Bradley, I know you're a man that prides himself on his vocabulary and use of words, but even you're not infallible. School boy error.

This ranges from inert and mediocre to downright godawful. It pains me to say it, too, because I am a big fan of the director and the star, and I even have an established respect for the Twilight saga, but this is a shameful misfire for each principal talent involved, with the potential exception of Saoirse Ronan, who reminds viewers how talented and elegant she is at a few important moments in the film. This despite having to perform, to endure, one of the worst, most obtrusive, and most petulant uses of voice-over since the legendary, misguided studio cut of Blade Runner. The third act in particular is a long, slow death march to no place of note. Any minor interest and suspense generated by the first two vanishes faster than a tourist's car in Mexico City.

C-

Oh my lord was this awful. I couldn't make it through the book because of the terrible writing but a good plot was there. I was looking forward to the film because I thought it could improve upon its source material. I couldn't have been more wrong. The direction was terrible and the lead performance, though having a few bright spots, was wooden. The script was so laughable and the voice over was atrocious. My favorite was when she said "hallelujah! " LOL Anyway, this was a terrible misfire.

3/10

This started off awful. The first maybe 40 minutes were so bad and dull. The voiceover was terrible. I didn't think it could recover at all. And it doesn't do a complete 180 or anything but I found it more enjoyable as it went along. This is still not a good film and I totally understand the hate, but it was alright for one watch. Now watching the entire thing again would probably be torture.

C





Oh god that was bad. The other three people in the theater laughed, except I think they all laughed because they found it genuinely funny and not lame . Everyone besides me laughed at all of the lame attempts at humor.

I have not read the Twilight series or The Host, but like the series which made Stephanie Meyers famous, the film adaptation of the The Host works by using supernatural creatures to tell a human story. The Host dips its toe into some deeper intellectual ambitions in regards to human cruelty and existentialism, but largely its focus is the human, emotional journey of Melanie/Wanda.

What makes the film work is simplicity. Credit to director Andrew Niccols for filming in such a clean, economical way. Niccols does a beautiful job capturing his actors and setting at once, with a nice still shot style. The plot’s simplicity helps as well. Barely leaving Wanda, it’s largely her running, the Seeker chasing her, then Wanda talking with the human survivors. The dystopia doesn’t need to be more developed than it is for this story. Even the Seeker’s scenes are restrained to her perspective, an effective choice.

As a flaw, the romantic subplots feel stuffed in and undercooked. It doesn’t help that Max Irons as Jared and Jake Abel as Ian, cannot express the layers Saorise Ronan as Wanda and William Hurt as Jeb can. The Jared and Ian scenes gave the film a surface-heavy tint that took away from the film’s deeper emotional and intellectual ambitions.

Although the film’s low-key, simple plot largely helps the film, the third act lacks fireworks to gain momentum again after so much time spent in the cave. Wanda’s sacrifice however is emotionally effective, as is the twist endings.

The Host is a nice sci-fi film, albeit just falling short of great, lacking a little punch.

http://jrodgermoviereviews.wordpress.co ... ostreview/

Just like the dual personalities in Wanda's head, The Host feels like like it has a split personality. On one side you have a good sic-fi story that Andrew Niccol is trying to tell. I can see what he wanted to mine out of Meyer's story. The setting, the look, the idea of the hosts and what they can do, etc; there's some interesting ideas here.

On the other hand you have the Stephanie Meyer/studio bullshit mindset that thought this could be another Twilight franchise. Was there any need whatsoever to have the love triangle (though its really between four "minds" and three bodies)? It would've been at least tolerable if it weren't for those two blocks of wood. Ronan can at least act, buts holy shit those other two should never be allowed in front of a camera again. As a matter of fact, the acting outside of Ronan, Hurt (though he looks bored), and Kruger to a lesser extent, is pretty fucking wooden.

The biggest thing that's botched though is how the split personalities are handled. I agree with PE, there should've been another body (Browning) that only Wanda could see (and we at least occasionally see). Ronan is given the impossible task of trying to emote for two people and it just doesn't work. And the voice-over couldn't have been more aggravating to listen to.

It's nowhere near as horrible as I was expecting, but its bland and a missed opportunity.



(C)

It's a shame Niccol couldn't get something bigger, more sci-fi like out of this film because it is his worst film so far. Ronan is fine and the best part of the film but not much really happens here and nothing significant is added to the genre. It's a bit better by film's end but ultimately just bland.

laughably awful