Ok, full disclosure – I only watched The Host movie and did not read the book. To be fair, my plan was to watch the movie first THEN feel inspired by the awesome movie to dig deeper and really enjoy all the details the book had to offer.
Sadly this plan didn’t work out how I imagined…
The Host Review
The Host Movie
My Expectations: I was imagining The Host movie to be the alien version of Twilight. It has a few of the same hallmarks – a spicy love triangle and a supernatural setting. But, not knowing too much about the plot, I really didn’t know what to expect.
The Reality: The movie was interesting and much better than some of the early Twilight movies.
The Host was still very Stephenie Meyer though. It had plenty of “tense” moments with internal struggles and over-the-top boy problems ten times worse than the Edward, Bella, Jacob situation. We’re talking multiple make-out sessions with different boys and so many confused emotions.
Overall thoughts: I didn’t totally love and swoon over this movie, but I didn’t hate it either. It was different enough to hold my interest – I mean, it’s not every day caterpillar-like aliens invade and take over human bodies on Earth, right? Plus, the desert setting was unusual and whole sympathetic “bad guy” thing really worked for this story.
Also, there was the small thing of Saoirse Ronan actually being a great actress. For most of the movie, her character is actually “inside” the mind of the alien who took over her body. So, acting as two separate people was tricky, but I think she pulled it off.
Her love interests’ acting….ehh. But, that’s ok. It really wasn’t about them anyway.
The Host Book
Ok, so I can’t judge on this, as I haven’t read it. If you HAVE read the book and/or seen the movie, please share your thoughts in the comments! Did you think the movie represented the book well? Did you like one better than the other?
In the past when I’ve seen movies that I loved that were inspired by books, I typically would get really excited about reading the book because you get so much more insight and depth from written story. The Host movie didn’t really inspire that same “fire” in me. I didn’t feel any great urge to 619-page novel.
Apparently, she’s not done with The Host series yet! According to an article posted in February, she’s writing a sequel called The Seeker. Hrmmm, I smell another movie too, I’m sure.
Is Stephenie Meyer on your auto-buy list? Or are you evaluating her on a book-by-book basis?? Plus, what did you think of The Host movie?
