The Host

Sometimes I watch movies and don't review them. I'm unsure why I'm not doing that in this case, because to be perfectly honest I'm not exactly proud that I watched this one. That is to say, it's downright embarrassing, and one of my more shameful movie choices. I knew what I was getting into, yet here we are. Why did I watch it, you ask? Let me paint you a picture:

It was the night after I watched Logan for the first time, and the rest of my family was not ready to watch it again. I was (and for the record still am) freshly enamored with the easy to love and fun to hate snide chatterbox of a villain of Logan, and the actor who played him, Boyd Holbrook. A quick perusal of his IMDb page informed me that I had only seen him in one movie previously, (A Walk Among the Tombstones, where he had a small role I barely noticed) and was in three more movies I immediately knew I had easy access to. And one, as you've probably guessed by now, was The Host, which I had casually plopped into my Netflix cue on the excuse that it was an Andrew Niccol film, with a vague inclination to watch it if I had nothing better to do and was in the mood to kill some brain cells. It's amazing how fast a vague inclination can turn into a legit interest with the proper incentive. I was like, "hey, let's watch this," and in my defense, no one protested.

And in their defense they liked this guy in Logan as much as I did.

But enough of the disclaimers. Movie review. The Host. I feel like the most accurate review I can make is to give a hearty laugh while waving my hand dismissively, but I'm a writer, so I suppose I should try and put it in words.

Spoilers beyond!

In the movie, Earth has been invaded by parasitic aliens who posses humans and take over their lives. At the very beginning, our heroine Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), a human rebel is caught and possessed by an alien called Wanderer, who, it turns out is nice -- unlike the villain (Diane Kruger) -- and when Melanie's mind refuses to leave the body to the invader, the two form an unconventional friendship. Wanderer gets to control the body, and Melanie yells things in her head. Wanderer turns to Melanie's side and runs away in search of Melanie's brother (Chandler Canterbury) and hunk boyfriend (Max Irons). She finds them along with her uncle (William Hurt) and other human survivors -- including a good looking dude named Jake Abel, I mean Ian, and his brother Kyle AKA Boyd Holbrook (AKA "oh yeah, that's why I'm watching this") -- who have a cute little community going on in some caves in the desert. Melanie's family assumes that she is dead, but conveniently decides not to kill the alien possessing her. Meanwhile Melanie inconveniently decides that telling them she's still inside is a bad idea, so Wanderer keeps quiet about it, causing some very convenient drama.

You can tell the possessed because the alien parasite makes their eyes glow blue. Also probably worth mentioning; Stephenie Meyer wrote the novel.

If you're thinking this doesn't make any sense, that's because you're right, it doesn't. The aliens are pacifists, trying to make the worlds they conquer peaceful, yet more often than not possession kills the host. (Hey, that's the name of the movie!) They're so "pure" we're told, they are incapable of picking up a gun. The villain is, however, conveniently able to for some magical reason, and shoots and kills people which in the movie's eyes make her infinitely worse than every other alien who kills by kicking souls out of bodies. This issue is brought up by "antagonistic" human characters to create conflict, but is never resolved.

For their part, the humans will go out, kidnap aliens, and forcibly remove the alien soul, which has a 100% fatality rate for both parties. They don't know how to remove the soul properly, but don't know what else to do, so they keep trying. This I suppose could balance the morality of both sides, making them equally wrong, but instead what the humans are doing is presented as barbaric. It never seems to dawn on Wanderer (Wanda for short, who's really the main character) that what her people are doing is at least equally terrible. Anyway the movie uses the conflict for drama when it wants and ignores it when it wants. On to lighter, sillier things.

Ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship...

Love triangles! Yay. Actually it isn't quite. Melanie and Jared are consistently in love, but it's super awkward for him seeing "Melanie" walking around not being Melanie... especially when something starts growing between Wanda and Ian. The more you think about this the weirder it gets, because Wanda is literally just a parasite that is thousands of years old. Ian insists that he fell in love with her mind, but why in the world should their minds be compatible? And she could have fallen in love with anyone, why the guy who is a good physical match for her? Also he tried to kill her, but bygones I guess, or, whatever.

So with Jared being possessive of the girl who looks like and is possessing his girl, and the girl who looks like his girl liking someone else, but being hesitant to do anything about it because the real girl is in her head yelling at her not to, things really do feel like a love triangle; only, one that was created to have a happy ending for all involved. Yes, this scifi plot exists for the sole (soul!) purpose of enabling ideal romantic situations for its characters. It's truly amazing how many situations are contrived to bring about kissing too. I am actually impressed. It was as if that, and not the plot or the characters were the point of the movie or something. Odd, but that couldn't be, right?

Hahahaha... ha... RIGHT??

Now I'm going to talk about Kyle even though he's pretty insignificant to the plot and the entire point of the movie, because, I want to. He's the main human antagonist, which is an unnecessary and therefore small part, but I watched this movie because of him, and danged if he wasn't the best part. At one point he tries to kill Wanda, but plagued by the convenient writing, almost dies himself instead. Wanda saves him (against Melanie's protests) and then even lies about what happened to protect him from punishment. This is a good moment for Wanda, and also for him, and I enjoyed Holbrook's performance in that scene as the bad guy who suddenly finds he has to rethink everything after being given some unexpected and very undeserved grace.

Overall the entire cast isn't bad either, but campy writing can bring a bad performance out of anyone. Saoirse Ronan's Wanda was a good lead, but Melanie is underdeveloped. Being a disembodied voice for the majority of the movie did her no favors. She has decent chemistry with her two co-stars, which was important for what the film wanted to be. Jake Abel's Ian was much more interesting than Max Irons' Jared, who was about as blank as Melanie, even with screen time. Ian and Wanda were fundamentally more interesting because of the way we get to see their relationship develop. It ends with a bit of a cringe though, because while Ronan and Abel had chemistry, Abel and Emily Browning did not -- she being the empty body that Wanda is transferred to in the twist ending, giving Melanie hers back. Browning was only there a couple minutes, but was spectacularly incapable of convincing that she was the most developed character in the film once she took over.

That twist ending should have won an award for Most Obvious Twist Ending Ever.

This review is already way longer than it deserves to be, so I guess I'll wrap up. The movie succeeds in being what it was conceived and designed to be. Oxymoronic connoisseurs of YA romance are perfectly catered to, and as long as they have no perception of what actual good, artistic filmmaking looks like, satisfaction is guaranteed. The small part of me that enjoys teenage romance flicks was mildly amused. The scifi fan in me was both intrigued (by the premise) and irritated (by the lazy and one-note direction it took). And the movie reviewer-me is absolutely appalled at the senseless plotting and cheap scripting used to contrive laughable romance, but still had fun cracking up at all those unintentionally hilarious moments this movie deals out like glowing blue eyes and pointless make-out sessions. In conclusion: It was a terrible movie, and time well spent!

Gattaca

All Vincent Freeman ever wanted to do was travel in space - to leave the earth in a rocket, and catch a little closer glimpse of the stars. Unfortunately, he's had something of a handicap ever since birth - ever since conception - he is not genetically enhanced. Oh, his parents meant well when they opted to not "give him his best chance" by insuring his genes made him strong and healthy and handsome, but in a society full of genetically enhanced, "valid" humans, exceptional is the new normal. And exceptional people are not just born. Vincent's parents realize this, when seconds after he is born, a DNA test results in a long list of defects he has, or will very likely have, including heart failure, and a mere thirty-year life expectancy. Their next child is enhanced; "valid," and as they grow up, Anton quickly surpasses Vincent in everything. The only job the genetic-discriminating world will give Vincent is that of a janitor, but he refuses to accept his fate. He buys and assumes the identity of a swimming star, Jerome Morrow, who has practically perfect genetics, but was paralyzed in an accident. Armed with this identity, all it takes is a DNA test for "Jerome" to be accepted into Gattaca, and start training for a mission into space. And as if living the life of a different person isn't hard enough, just a week before Jerome is scheduled to finally leave the earth, successful, his mission director is found murdered, and the main suspect is a "in-valid" named... Vincent Freeman.

And all that is just the set-up.

This 1997 understated, suspenseful, mystery/sci-fi/drama was the first film for Kiwi writer/director Andrew Niccol, who also penned the brilliant The Truman Show, one of my ultimate favorite films. Gattaca isn't very similar to The Truman Show though; it's more Minority Report. There is at least one similarity I did notice though - both movies hold your attention with ease, without the use of action sequences - explosive, stylized, violent, epic or otherwise. There is action, but not the effect filled, drawn out kind you see in big blockbusters, or expect to see in science fiction flicks. Now, don't get me wrong; I love me some action sequences (The Avengers is one of my favorite movies too) and Niccol probably could've gotten away with putting some in Gattaca, but I really respect that he didn't, because he really didn't need to.

Suspense is the order of the day here, and I could tell it was well-done, and subtle suspense too, because I regularly discovered myself unknowingly at the edge of my seat. The drama of Jerome trying to keep his true identity a secret, and the murder mystery element is plenty to hold interest with a firm, very neo-noir hand.

Oh yeah, and there's a little romance too; nothing very special, but I usually don't like Uma Thurman at all, and her more mellow performance here was plenty good. She plays Irene, a valid, who has potential heart problems in spite of being enhanced, and catches Jerome's interest. Vincent/Jerome, that is - Ethan Hawke - and I'm thinking is the first film I've ever seen him in. He plays the determined, controlled, reaching-for-the-stars hero of the future very pleasingly... and looks impressivly like Jude Law.

Law is the real Jerome of course, who goes by Eugene after selling his identity. Wheelchair-bound, Eugene wheels around the basement of the apartment he shares with Jerome, collecting his own DNA for Jerome's use, and making sarcastic remarks, and, occasionally, saving the day. His supporting role was actually the meatiest role of the film, plus the source of comic relief, and of course, Law did a great job with it all. Every time I find one of my eyelashes now, I can hear him saying, "Keep your lashes on your lids where they belong!" It's... actually not a bad thing at all.

There were a few things that didn't sit quite right with me - spoilers though, so I won't go into detail - but nothing that ruined the overall movie experience. I did skip through one short scene though, that justified one third of the movie's PG-13 rating for "brief violent images, language, and some sexuality," (as per usual) and dealt with the other two-thirds, but it was all relatively mild.

I really like these kinds of movies. Different - Niccol tells a subtle, but unique story, and never adheres to genre stereotypes (like sci-fi requiring a side of action/adventure) just because that what you're "supposed" to do. And thought-provoking - Gattaca cleverly poses - plants - questions inside the plot, and then leaves you to your own devices to answer them to your satisfaction. Beautiful, but not overpowering or stylized, and never trying to force anything from us we don't want to give - Gattaca is an unimposing, cleverly acted, eye-pleasing science-fiction film. If you were me, you would be intrigued.

-- 4/5 stars.