20131113: Fantasy Review--The Host

The Host

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated PG-13, 125 minutes.
2. IMDB: 5.7/10.0 from 51,567 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 40 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  8% on the meter; 50% from 47,544 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.6/5.0 from 118,587 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Andrew Niccol.
6. Starring:  Saoirse Ronan as Melanie Stryder/Wanda, Diane Krueger as The Seeker/Lacey, William Hurt as Jeb, Frances Fisher as Maggie, Rachel Roberts as Soul Fleur, Shyaam Karra as Soul Anshu.


2. Setup and Plot
1. In the opening narration, William Hurt's voice tells us about a planet inhabited by benevolent beings who get along with one another and treat the planet itself decently.  Fine.  These beings are no longer human.  Human beings have had their personalities obliterated by mental parasites.


2. No story there, so we have a few human beings who resist. The movie is about these few: their struggles, their romances, their subjugation and destruction by the invading parasites.  'We tried to help you, and this is how you thank me?'


3. It was a point of pride for the 'good' alien parasite murderer that her race had subjugated 12 star systems.  She expected the humans she was with to be happy at the news and share in her pride.  Ah, the unbridled arrogance.


4. Who cares?  Where is the retribution?  The parasites kill 7 billion humans, minus perhaps 7 thousand ('we outnumber them one million to one').  Do any of the parasites die?  Well, yes, some do, but hardly enough to amount to anything.  Do they ever recognize that perhaps they've done something wrong?


5. I chalk this one up as just another 'I hate humanity' film.  Avoid it.  Besides the obscene central subject, it is deadly boring. The romance was right up there with Twilight nonsense.  Dull and unlikely, not engaging from beginning to end.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Candidate for worst 2013 release, as boring as it is absurdly illogical.
2. One star of five; two black holes for acting and screenplay. This is 1984 made pretty, but also deadly boring.   I was quite gratified to see that it did not do well at the box office. The one star was for the closing credits.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Well done, except for the constructed sets: I was reminded of the 1960s version of Star Trek.  The landscape of the American West is well-captured now and then.  At the same time, one sees the surviving humans with late-model Volvo trucks that are squeaky clean and have plenty of petrol to burn.  I don't think so.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 0/10 What acting?  Actors walk around and we hear the roaring in their heads made supposedly by the human-destroying parasites.  Diane Krueger had a moment: 'this one has difficulty dying.'  Nice.  The performance of Saoirse Ronan was central to this film, and was well beyond bad.  I will avoid seeing anything else she appears in.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Genocide committed by evolved, caring, PC parasites; they just want to help us by killing all of us.  What we are is bad, and has to be fixed; we, of course, are too stupid to accomplish that.  On another note, the world as depicted is very thinly populated (some suicides along the way?) and immensely wealthy.  This is ridiculous.  No one is shown producing anything, such as food, clothing, electricity, housing.  With no one actually working, how would the vast stretches of current human poverty have been converted to gentrified park lands?   What is shown, endlessly, is the tracking down of humans to be mind-raped by parasites, and the interrogations of newly infected (soon to be dead) humans to give up other human survivors.  This is just the obscenity of 1984 made pretty.