The Host

Spoilers, ahoy.

I went to this movie with extremely high expections (which was a mistake, by the way) and came out feeling extremely disappointed. Having read the book, I was sorely upset by the lack of information that they put into the movie. I felt that they could have put in everything and made the movie four hours long and it would've been fantastic. There was no background information on the "souls," too little "getting to know you" time with Ian, and just really, really poor acting.

This book is about an alien invasion of Earth and one girl's journey back to her family. She is taken over, though, and has to host an alien inside her body. These aliens make everything pretty peaceful, they don't kill, steal, lie, cheat. They make Earth "perfect," or it would be if there weren't false people living inside bodies. The last of the human resistance is hiding out, with the entirety of the population already having been taken over. The girl, Melanie Stryder, is trying to get back to her brother and her boyfriend (Jared) by manipulating the alien inside her, named Wanderer. On the way, though, Wanda (as she comes to be called) falls in love with them, as well. When they find the boys, they are living in a cave system and do not trust Wanda in Melanie's body. After a long period of mistrust, Wanda gains the humans' affection by saving Jamie. She falls in love with a man, Ian, along the way. At the very end, she shows the humans how to take aliens out of the humans and, in return, asks them to take her out. She "gives Mel back" and is put in another body, against her wishes, but stays in it because the body would not regain consciousness. The group meets another rebel cell and they have their very own alien living among them. Wanda reflects on how odd it would be if, someday, some of her people live in peace with some of the humans.

The movie does not play up relationship to Jamie enough, for starters. I felt no connection to the boy in the movie like I did with the boy in the book. Jamie is essentially a background character that Mel and Wanda have to save a few times. He seems much less important than Jared or Ian, and even Ian is pretty downplayed. In general, the movie just seems too fast-paced. Everything happens too quickly, people die too quickly, and things are resolved too quickly.

There was also no background information on the other planets and species in the galaxy. In the book, Wanda tells us all about the other worlds and how beautiful they are, but we get none of that in the movie. It would've been awesome if they could have stuck that in and then showed off what they looked like. I also think we could've stood to learn a bit more about the souls themselves, as they are the main antagonists in this movie (without trying to antagonize).

All in all, if you are going to see this movie, don't read the book first. And if you have read the books, well tough luck. If I had not read the books first for this movie, I would probably give it about a six out of ten, but having read the book, I would give it about a four. Meh.