Movie Review: The Host.

The Host
Runtime: 125 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Written by: Andrew Niccol (screenplay), Stephenie Meyer (novel)
Directed by: Andrew Niccol
Release date: March 29th, 2013

My Review:

I’m a huge Stephenie Meyer fan. (You are more than entitled to have your opinions of both her and her work, but she was the reason I got back into writing.)

With that said, I enjoyed the Twilight films, even though they were a bit ridiculous at times (same goes for the books), so naturally, I was looking forward to seeing The Host when it hit the big screen.

With Andrew Niccol both directing and writing the script, I was incredibly excited. I mean, it’s Niccol for crying out loud! The trailers looked impressive. The film stills looked great. The cast was pretty darn impressive. And yet, when I left the theater on opening night, I ended up leaving a bit disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong now, The Host is a decent movie, but it isn’t what I was hoping it would be. My main problem was the editing. It felt so choppy. My boyfriend, who hadn’t read the book, was left confused because instead of actually explaining anything, it just kind of cut back to a different scene. That isn’t going to help with audiences that are not familiar with the novel.

Then there was the issue of pacing. Naturally when you have a 600+ page novel, it is going to be difficult to cram everything into a 125 minute movie. But the pacing was so off in The Host. Really, really off. Everything just kind of happened at full speed, never leaving enough time for the audience to thoroughly absorb anything.

The Host could have been an incredible movie. It had all of the right elements, but in the end, it just didn’t work.

Would I still recommend seeing it? Yeah. I mean, the acting is spot on (the cast is downright fantastic) and the imagery is terrific. Just don’t go in expecting a top notch adaption, because you won’t find that here.

Trailer: