The Host

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

I was curious. I generally like Andrew Niccol's films. Saoirse Ronan is always watchable. But Stephenie Meyer has found a way to take the Invasion of the Body Snachers trope and reduce it into a vapid teen love triangle (quadrangle?). In the most horrifying way possible. It's something I think could work on the page but making the conceit of a person trapped in the mind of a body someone else is controlling and having interior conversations with themselves comes across pretty funny onscreen. When there's two people sharing the one body and they both love a different boy, you're gonna get some comedy shenanigans right? Really, so much of the film revolves around having to kiss these two different guys. I don't think the target audience will have much of a problem with this though.

Really that's all the film is. It's very small scale. Just people talking in a cave and kissing boys.

Most of the film is pretty funny, intentionally or otherwise, mostly otherwise. William Hurt seems to come out unscathed. Saoirse Ronan delivers a killer duologe with herself at the climax. I think I saw some genuine emotion there. But it felt out of place with the rest of the film.

I wonder if Stephenie Meyer's material hampered Niccol's script. Or if he just treated it with the respect he though it deserved. Or maybe he's just gotten that bad. This film has the worst meet cute dialogue I've ever seen. I felt so bad for the actors that had to try and make it sound real. Yikes.

SURPRISE ALEX RUSSEL! SURPRISE EMILY BROWNING! 

That could be a spoiler, but it would be great to see them again if there's a sequel. They do set one up. Then again, if they don't make one, that's really fine too. I think I could see the idea of what they were going for. I think even more-so than Twilight, you can see the intent. But yeah, that concept just should probably not be a film. It probably should not even be a book.