Les âmes vagabondes

Based on "The Host" a novel by Stephenie Meyer released on May 6, 2008.

This presentation is a standard invasion scenario. It was our world until they took it over. It was my body until they took it over. But wait there are some hold outs. They do not have a chance. On top of that Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan) becomes the hostess with the mostess by resisting her alien occupier; this will through a wrench in everyone's plans.

It took some time to figure out why the alien good guys were so aggressive when it came to Melanie Stryder who changed her name to Wanda.

So we could tell the hosted from the unhosted we the hosted have strange eyes. So, you can tell them at a distance the good people (depending on your perspective) wore white and drove silver; the rogues wore muted colors and drove more militant vehicles. Sort of like the old westerns with black or white hats.

The whole story is easy to second guess as it is all standard clichés. I have not read the book yet but something tells me it has more facets to it.

In any event, it is fun to watch the interactions between the characters and even the few chase scenes. You may even want to watch this again.

The Host has an intriguing conceit. It is about a post-apocalypse where aliens take control on every human body then the remaining unpossessed humans fear them despite that these aliens only want peace. The story might have an idea that the humans could be the real enemy here or it's just both of them. The Sci-Fi bits are pretty interesting but it doesn't end there. It's based on a young adult novel so definitely there will be teenage hormones scattered around the context. It has romance that is suppose to save their world and change their lives, but once again just like any other young adult film, the romance is nothing more than a bunch of good looking people falling in love and doing romantic cliché stuff. Love may not be a problem to these stories but this romance is terribly empty. They're just making out and saying ridiculously cheesy lines. It would have been a fascinating idea but it just can't get away from its typical teen angst.

It is kind of similar to the recent young adult novel based film, Warm Bodies, except the antagonists in The Host are virtuous beings instead of ravenous monsters. It seems that both stories have the same morality. Humans are not the most peaceful beings either and maybe the order and mentality of both sides are the reason why they couldn't get along. When it goes to the romance, it says that Melanie and Wanda's love between the boys might revolt their world's condition. But it strays from its plot giving us a lousily told story and romance. Mostly the romance. It is noticeable that most of their "love" only rely on their lips. Which means they kiss a lot. We do not get to know much about why they care for each other, other than being one of the last normal human beings of their age. It is also filled with plot holes because of course it wants to appeal teens for the endless love that didn't even work. It is directed by Andrew Niccol who is somewhat a Sci-Fi expert but it looks like he's afraid that too much Sci-Fi than romance might disappoint these children. He could have been more indulgent.

The film has a solid cast but not all of them standout. Saoirse Ronan plays two roles here and she fills enough heart on both characters. Diane Kruger looks like she is enjoying playing the film's villain. The roles of Max Irons and Jake Abel seems to be only designed for kissing, slapping, and sometimes strangling, leaving William Hurt being the only likable gentleman of the picture.

The script explains some points of the concept which is fine in that way in spite of the plot holes but it gets terrible on the romance. There are dialogues that may get way out of hand, ends up being laughable. Even more laughable is one scene when the protagonist tries to wake up her subconscious by kissing her boyfriend. I don't know if I should blame anyone about it. I mean what choice does she have? Still, it's ridiculous. The film is at least stunning. It gets to explore something magnificent around. The exteriors serves a lot of intrigue to its world. It features shiny cars and choppers. Most of the action are well shot even though the action itself isn't really that interesting but everything in the film looks good.

The Host is not interesting enough. It thematically talks about peace and stuff. Well, you can make peace out of love but the film only shows kissing and I think there is more in love than just making out. Hormonally, this could be a perfect escapism for teens. An apocalyptic world about relationships of these good looking couples with fast awesome cars crashing on the road. But the story seems to offer more. Again, they are unable to show it because the only fan service for adaptations of teen books is to follow every single sequence from the book because they love comparing. Too bad, they could have also shown what's behind the words as well. The Host is another victim of a generic young adult film adaptation that doesn't understand much of the meaning of the story, and throw away the most bland of all romances.

In the future, Earth has been invaded by aliens that take over the human bodies with their souls to live a perfect life in a world without crime, violence or war and with the environment restored. However, a few humans still resist to the invaders and they are chased by The Seekers.

When the teenager Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan) that belongs to the resistance is captured by the leader of The Seekers (Diane Kruger), the alien Wanderer takes over her body expecting to find where the humans are hidden. But Melanie is still in her body and resists to the Wanderer and asks her to not tell to The Seeker what she has learned to protect her brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury), her boyfriend Jared Howe (Max Irons) and her friends. Wanderer feels empathy for her and keeps the secret but The Seeker decides to put Wanderer in another body and take her body. Melanie asks Wanderer to flee to meet her friends in the middle of the desert.

When Melanie's uncle Jeb (William Hurt) finds her dehydrated in the desert, he brings Melanie to his hideout and calls her Wanda. He also protects her from a group led by Ian O'Shea (Jake Abel) but along the days, Ian falls in love with Wanda. Meanwhile The Seeker is obsessed hunting Wanda down in the desert.

"The Host" is a movie with wrong marketing that misguide the viewers that expect to see a tense or full of action sci-fi in the style of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and find a pleasant romance. The plot is developed in low pace disappointing a great number of viewers. But the story is actually beautiful despite the flaws.

The beginning is too rushed and there is a poor development of Melanie. It does not make sense why Jeb's group wants to kill Melanie when they find her in the desert if Doc is trying to save the humans removing the alien "souls" from them. If the aliens are so peaceful, why is The Seeker so evil? My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Hospedeira" ("The Host")

Note: On 12 March 2023, I saw this film again.

Outside of The Twilight Saga, The Host is Stephanie Meyer's biggest novel and since the success of her supernatural series, her sci-fi novel has been adapted. There is a stronger cast and director for The Host, than the Twilight Saga, but how does it fare on its own terms? In the near future, Earth has been conquered by a parasitic alien race known as The Souls, who implant themselves into human bodies. Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan) is a member of the human resistance who gets captured when she tries to protect her younger brother, Jamie (Chandler Canterbury). Melanie gets implanted with a Soul, called Wanderer, with the aliens planning to use Melanie's memories in order to find the human resistance. As Wanderer explores Melanie's memories, she finds out about Melanie's lover, Jared (Max Irons) and the pair plan an escape to the desert to find the resistance camp. Within the camp, Wanderer falls for another human, Ian (Jake Abel), causing problems for all of them.

Let's get the comparisons with Twilight out the way; yes there is a is love triangle (or should that be a love square?), The Host has a much better lead actress with Ronan then Kirsten Stewart and has a stronger supporting cast, with the likes of William Hurt and Diane Kruger. Andrew Niccol also gives the film more creditability behind the camera, acting as both the writer and director. The Host has interesting ideas that had many potential avenues to explore: but unfortunately it focuses more on the love story instead of all of the other aspects that could have lead to a much more meaningful film.

Ronan does rise above the material and gives very strong performance, as you would expect from her. This is even more remarkable that she has to argue and talk with herself, like Homer Simpson arguing with his own brain. Whilst there was the potential for themes of locked in syndrome as Melanie is trapped inside her own head, fighting to control her own body or going through a more literal, internal conflict. But it turns really silly when she argues with herself over two men, as opposed of having a much more difficult time of having a stronger conflict within her character. Ronan gets battered and beaten throughout the film as she gets hit, verbally abused and discriminated against and yet, still persevere through everything she's up against.

Whilst Ronan does a good job, the two men she is meant to be conflicted about are blank stales. Neither actor has much of a personality or character and they are very indistinguishable from each other. Ronan has no choice but to carry the film, considering that there was nothing going for the main love interests. At least Hurt and Kruger looked like they were having fun with their roles and were highly professional with their performances.

The idea of some sort of insider for an oppressive regime having an awakening, usually because a love interest and ends up turning against their own side has been used before. We have seen it in novels like Nineteen-Eighty Four, Fahrenheit 451 and We and films such as Metropolis and THX-1138. The Host does twist this age old idea in sci-fi, even if the execution was lacking.

The Host had a really strong premise with opportunities to explore multiple themes. They could have been themes about identity, the battle within the mind, split personalities, trust and how humans would survive after this invasion. But like Twilight, the film only touches on these concepts and puts all of its focus in the wrong places.

Much like Twilight, The Host has been criticised for its dialogue and being unintentionally funny. It is true that the film has some bad dialogue, but with some of the moments that were comical that had be intentional, with some of its moments of cultural clash and the bickering between Wanderer and Melanie. There are also some dark moments and there were really refreshing when they do come around.

Niccol is known for being an excellent writer director, making Gattaca and Lord of War and was nominated for an Academy Awards for his screenplay for The Truman Show. The Host is his first adaptation and it felt very rigidly close to the source material. What it results to is a bland experience that has episodic nature, having mini-plots with some developments, instead of a larger overarching story. Looks wise, the film is pretty flat and dull, using nothing but silver chrome for the alien technology, concrete and glass for the buildings and the humans are based in an empty desert environment. The cinematography and the special effects were solid but, Niccol was coasting and he is much more capable then this.

Currently on Rotten Tomatoes, The Host has an 12% rating and seemingly on course to be considered one of the worst films of 2013. Whilst it is hard to argue that The Host is a good movie, it is certainly not terrible: its crime is merely being mediocre, dull and forgettable.

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I went into this movie expecting something decent. Perhaps my hopes were a bit too high. First off, I have not read the book and now being aware of the whole plot, I definitely don't plan too. The plot never really went anywhere. It starts out with plenty of action and anticipation, but ultimately falls short and ends up being really boring and lacking any real conflict. At one point I thought Diane Kruger was going to save the film, but the character development was poor. Overall, the acting was weak, the plot never took off, it became a make out session with no emotional attachment to characters. I strongly recommend you not waste your time or money on this sorry excuse for a film.