The Host

Ratings: 7.3/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Sci-Fi Romance Drama

The Host is set in a futuristic world where Earth has been inhabitated by a parasitic alien species and humans are the minority. Able to control the mind and body of any human they "infect", the aliens hopes to gradually take over Earth by hunting down every last human alive. However, their plans are disrupted by an anormaly,  one of the aliens forms a connection with a strong-willed girl, by the name of Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), and both of them (essentially one person) eventually form a friendship which might just save the world. 

Based on a novel from author Stephenie Meyer, who also wrote Twilight, I was keeping my fingers crossed that this movie wouldn't cause me to spew blood like Twilight did. It turned out that the director was the determining factor when it came to the overall feel of a movie. I naturally assumed that The Host was directed by the same person as Twilight, but it turned out that director Andrew Niccol not only did not direct Twlight, he was the one who brought us In Time, Gatacca, and the highly acclaimed The Truman Show. Andrew Niccol is a quite the master at Sci-Fi movies, and he didn't slack off this time round either. 

However, since it's written by the same author, there's still the element of teenage romance prevalent, and perhaps the genre should be more aptly described as Sci-Fi Teenage Romance. However, there's still a certain degree of maturity in the plot, touching on themes of stereotype, forgiveness and most importantly, trust, and of course predominantly, love. 

Alright, I admit, apart from the interesting Sci-Fi plot, the other main reason that I was so drawn to watching this is because of Saoirse Ronan (pronounced as "Seer-sha Ronan"), one of my favourite upcoming actresses who not only have the looks, but who can act as well. 

*major spoilers ahead* The minuses for the film are that as there's 2 "persons" in Saoirse Ronan's body, the audience will always get to hear both of them talking to each other throughout the movie, in a narrative-style-like yet not your typical narrated movies, such that there's a certain degree of childishness possibly due to the shallow conversations they have with each other. Problem with the scripting, perhaps. Since we're on this topic, there are a few cute lines though. 

The love triangle with the 2 seemingly unknown eye-candy actors opened a huge door of "chick-flickness" and the way they tried to "test" Melanie's true motives are rather... immature, through lotsa smooching... Problem with the casting, perhaps. 

As for the pluses, the interesting and refreshing sci-fi storyline (but not as strong as I would have hoped), and the CG was pretty awesome, by awesome I mean realistic, not grandeur. 

I did enjoy the movie, more than I expected, but not enough for me to sing it praises and reccomend it to friends who would ask me for weekend movie reccomendations. So since I'm assuming all my viewers are my friends as well, I wouldn't quite reccomend this one, unless there's a certain eye-candy you don't wanna miss.