Tory Says:
Let me start by saying I read the book and as usual the movie is NEVER as good as the book. However, this was a great film! I’m a fan of the Twilight Saga but I didn’t have any interest in The Host. Then I saw the preview for the movie and thought “Wow. I should try the book before that comes out.” So I did. I’m not a fast reader but I pushed myself to read all 619 pages in less than a week! Basically this film is like someone put the book on fast forward. Enough about the book. I thought the film was excellent!
The plot of this film is pretty simple. An alien race has taken over Earth by injecting themselves into human bodies. The alien or “soul” forces the human mind out and take over their host. One of the strongest souls is named Wanderer but when she is injected into her host, Melanie (the human mind) doesn’t leave. Instead of searching Melanie’s memories for the location of the human resistance, Wanderer bonds with her and goes in search of Melanie’s family.
I thought they did a pretty good job with casting. Saoirse Ronan was fantastic! This was the first film I had seen her in and I was impressed with her emotional range. (In my opinion, not too many people can pull off having an alien in their head!) I think my favorite part is that it isn’t “an alien movie” like I thought. It actually has a strong family story line and even romance! Also, it didn’t feel like a “teenager” film the way The Twilight Saga did at times.
Special effects were minimal but fantastic! The way you can tell a soul is present instead of a human is by their eyes. Both the souls and the eyes were well done! (As my husband said “Stephenie Meyer certainly likes her contact lenses!”) There is nothing too scary or graphic in it. Any violence is mild. I think as long as they can understand the concept, they could see it…so probably 10 and up. I really enjoyed it and will probably own it. There were some bigger things missing from the book and I don’t agree with all of the casting choices but I would still give it a solid 8 out of 10.
Cat Says:
I will start off by saying I have not read the book. The people in front of us had and I overheard the guy saying that they seemed to follow the book pretty closely but that's all I have on that. I took the 12 year old with me and while he liked it he said it had too much "love story" and not enough action like he'd been hoping.
Quickly, the story opens on this girl, Melanie, late teens to early 20's, getting "taken" by the aliens. But once she wakes up again the "soul" of that body soon learns that the girl has not actually left that body yet and has some ability to control her. This is a new feeling for the soul, which calls itself The Wanderer, who has never encountered this in a body before. Soon she begins to understand how important it is for Melanie to get back to her family. Her boyfriend and her little brother have run to a hiding spot to join up with more family and The Wanderer wants to help Melanie get back. Unfortunately there is one "Seeker" who is determined to find them and take them so this complicates it all.
The story of how The Wanderer and Melanie join up, convince her family that she is still inside the occupied body, and that the aliens are not all bad while dealing with the issue of the Seeker who wants The Wanderer back, is what fills up the two hours nicely. There are definitely points where you feel badly, not only for Melanie who wants her boyfriend and life back but also for The Wanderer who has fallen in love herself and wants a life for herself as well.
I won't give away too many details only to say that the writer of Twilight seems to have done a much better job with this one even if the theme is a familiar one. She tends to love to write about severe complications in a social and in a relationship forum and plays on the same themes. However, unlike Twilight (nope, not a fan here of that series), the acting is very good, the relationships feel genuine as do the emotions. You "hear" Melanie with voice-over which, at times, bugged me but I can't think of another way around that issue so it is what it is. I don't have much bad to say about it. It was a bit slow at times and it's a small story so both of those tend to keep it from being "great". But I really did like Saoirse Ronan in the title role and William Hurt as head of her family is perfect which isn't any sort of surprise. Mike Irons and Jake Able, who we remember from Percy Jackson, are well cast as pivotal humans against the aliens and Diane Kruger is good as the very motivated Seeker. The few special effects they use are really good and look completely real so absolutely no complaints there.
I give this an 8 out of 10. The PG-13 rating is based on the violent encounters with the Seekers as well as some mild romantic scenes. If you have a kid who loved the book then chances are the movie will be fine. However I think the rating of 13 and over is a good one simply because the story is the focus here, not the action, and that might be boring to younger members of the family.
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