Review - The Host

When I saw the trailer for this movie and did some research on the book, I developed some expectation for this film. Despite knowing that it is by the same author as the Twilight series, I thought this film had a shot of becoming something more than its source material. This film had a lot going for it; a visionary director Andrew Niccol (who directed Gattaca, The Truman Show, S1m0ne and The Terminal), an actually talented rising star Saoirse Ronan to play the title role, and a sci-fi story I honestly wanted to see done in a big budget film.

The idea of extraterrestrials invading Earth by possession of our bodies and minds is nothing new, but I really like this premise, and to me the defining work for this sub-genre was Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If you haven't seen the latter film I highly recommend you check it out from the video rentals (not sure if they'll stock it though). I loved this film though I only watched it 30 years after its release, and I really wanted to see this concept revived and explored in the psychological dimension I hoped this film would explore it while using the invasion aspect to keep me in suspense.

Well, the movie does try, and fail miserably. From a movie sense, I would argue that this was far worse  as entertainment than Twilight, and amongst the worst in terms of character driven stories I've seen on the big screen. But its biggest sin was not stupidity, plot holes or unconvincing character. It offended me the most because it took everything great about Sci-Fi films and sterilized the script till it became nothing more than a backdrop to present a soap opera played in slow motion.

A few people already warned me against seeing it but I really wanted to experience the film myself before I can dismiss it. I would say regardless of whether this film turned out good or bad or to my taste, I needed to see it anyway to end my curiousity.

An interesting world abandoned for uninteresting characters.

(spoilers alert...sort of)

As I type this I literally deleted 5 paragraphs of my draft because I couldn't elegantly explain what a betrayal this film was to the Sci-Fi genre. So lets try to do this as simply as possible.

Science Fiction genre films invite us to explore a world constructed from an author's creative interpretation of where science could one day take us, and placing characters in those worlds we hoped to see (or never see) become our reality, but has not yet come to pass. This is why Science Fiction has been saturated by ideas about our future, about the possible, the probable and the plausible. In the sub-genre of Apocalypse and post-Apocalypse, the stories are almost always about seeing how the human condition can endure in the harshest living conditions, against the mightiest and deadliest of foes, and come out on top through ingenuity, courage and sometimes, simple faith.

The Host invites us to enter a world where an alien race has invaded Earth by assimilating into humans, bringing with them their technologies far beyond that of Earth's, and providing an easy indicator of who is human and who is not. However the scenes showing a changed world counts for less than 20 minutes of the 2 hours we sat through, where the other 100 minutes we're trapped with Wanderer/Melanie in the desert cave and talking with other people and talking with herself.

The first 10 minutes where they spew out expositions and character back stories, and the last 10 minutes where you start seeing how Wanderer changes sides to help the humans, is probably the only "Sci-Fi" bit of the whole film. In between we get 1 car chase scene using Earth technology, we get a few small talks about Wanderer's background, and a small reveal about The Seeker's motivations for finding and subduing the human race. Then it's more sitting around, strolling in the cave, farming and avoiding detection from the helicopters overhead.

We are presented the opportunity to explore a post-invasion world where humanity has been bettered by the removal of humanity itself. And it is pushed aside so that we can have a 'character'-driven story. I say character quote unquote because there really isn't much character in this film. The interactions between Wanderer, Melanie and The Seeker has a few (very few) good moments, the rest of the humans and Souls are completely forgettable and unimportant to the story. The romance Wanderer/Melanie shares with Ian and Jared is unconvincing, the uncle is cool but he doesn't really develop much as a character, and the younger brother, well, he's not that bad an actor is the only positive I've got. 

Andrew Niccol manages to get his hand on a fairly decent cast and does almost nothing with them. Nothing substantial happens in most of this film. There really isn't much tension, there isn't much at stake, and even the climax lasted less than 2 minutes, then we drag on the resolution for another 20 minutes before the film ends on an unsatisfactory note. The scene where Melanie tries to kill herself at the beginning is arguably the most profound decision made by the character, perhaps the most effective scene in the whole film, and it was glossed over as a flashback just to get the story going. Seriously I think the trailer was a better film than the film itself.

And it is perhaps a worse offense for Sci-Fi films to be unsubstantial than to be filled with plot holes and inaccuracies. This film has no plot holes because its plot is very thin, and not much of the world it takes place in is explored, explained or even hinted at. We never learn where the Souls really come from, we never learn how they found or chose Earth, we can't really tell them apart from normal humans because of the 'personalities' we see in Wanderer and The Seeker, and the way Souls can be removed from the Host safely, is just plain weak. 

The Annoying Inner Voice

For the most part, you get a feeling that the aliens are very hygienic, orderly and sterile in both appearance and the way they interact. Perhaps it was designed for contrast, because Melanie's inner voice is so annoying and, for the most part, juvenile. I'm all for the concept of the resilient mind surviving in the occupied mind, but most of the time her vocal mannerism is so immature and simplistic, she behaves more like a parasite inside Wanderer than a duality of being. 

The way she talks and reacts to situations often removes any character depth built by her other half, who in my opinion wasn't done that badly, but it any atmosphere the choreographer tried to create through the set design, colors, lighting, soft lens and fairly effective use of angle shots is quickly killed once Melanie talks.

In a way this 'portrayal' of Melanie makes the film more realistic, but disrupts the tone (albeit a really slow, melancholic and empty tone) and reduces the film to sounding almost like a Saturday morning Disney show in a few dialogues, particularly as Wanderer humanizes.

Also it is kind of boring that we never 'see' the real Melanie talk with Wanderer the way people with multiple personality disorders might through the reflection of mirrors. Granted a visualisation of their dialogues wouldn't really improve the film much but as it stands, this film has been fairly lazy and budget conscious.

I think I'll just go to the nitpicks

I really don't like this film, but I realise that the more I try to think of reasons why I don't like it, the less I'm coming up with. Perhaps it's because this film is essentially a blank slate. It provides you with a shell, with underdeveloper characters, unclear rules and a larger universe that has yet to be shown. In a book this would be effective but again in film adaptations we expect the director to populate the world for us to some degree, so that whether we like it or not, at least we can see our ideas of the world realised in some form or another.

I think my main complaint for this film ultimately is lack of substance. The film was two hours, but I felt like I was fed maybe 20-30 minutes of actual content, yet it's so draggy in most scenes I felt like I've been watching for a thousand years. I learnt nothing, felt nothing, remembered almost nothing (especially the expository scenes), and now expect nothing of its sequels (if they ever get produced). And even the worst of Sci-Fi films like Battlefield Earth, as stupid and flawed as it is, at least was entertaining to laugh at. The Host, is not only complete failure as entertainment, it also fails in providing any thought-provoking ideas for Sci-Fi lovers, and I believe even for most of the general audience, they should be refunded.

The Nitpicks

Most of my nitpicks are related to things not explained in the film. Maybe they are in the book but I'm going by movie logic:

• The film says that Souls can only exist by bonding with another lifeform, and that they cannot survive without a host. So...where, when and how did Souls exist in the first place? Did they exist in another entity but then lost their physical form? Explanation wanted/needed!
  
• If the Souls' only purpose in invading was to survive by bonding with hosts, then shouldn't invading one world be enough? What's the point in invading every world? Are there that many Souls out there that need a home?
  
• It doesn't look hard to disguise yourself as a Human or a Soul; just need to wear contact lens! After all the only way both sides check your terrestriality is with a torch light.
  
• After Melanie tries to kill herself to avoid capture and assimilation, one of the Souls says that she is still alive despite all her critical bone and organ damages. Then he says that she must have a strong reason to live. Wouldn't she have a stronger reason to die? I don't know, in retrospect it seems like she might be weaker than the Souls think since she wanted to die but failed to commit to it.
  
• Wanderer says she's at least 1000 Earth years old and have seen 8 different worlds, and she fell in love with Ian? It's not as creepy as Edward and Bella but still doesn't digest well. Also they have like no chemistry anyway.
  
• How does the Soul-occupied Earth operate economically? As far as I can see Souls get free medical care and can visit shops where you don't need to pay. If this is a moneyless society that actually works, I want to learn more! See what they are doing right that we can use. Not explained!
  
• Towards the end of the film, Wanderer teaches Doc that a Soul can be safely removed from a Human host, thus restoring the original Human mind without harming the Soul. But at the start of the film it is explained that most humans "fade away". So...what happens if you safely remove a soul from a Human who has faded away? Do they wake up like from a coma or do they stay faded away? No explanation either :(

Looper (2012)

Looper is basically the love child of Inception, Back to the Future and Bruce Willis, though a slightly inferior product. It has the intelligence and the 'continuous revelation' style of storytelling as Inception, it tries to tackle the semantics of time travel, all the while delivering the virtually mindless action of people shooting at Bruce. I think by this movie he has probably starred in the same role over 50 movies, the only difference this time is that he used guns more than his body for the fights. In fact he's basically just playing John McClane in this movie, though he actually does die. I am growing tired of his character in the genre, but I don't see many better alternatives in the horizon so I'll just smile when the director subtly pokes fun at Bruce's other movies.

<Spoiler Alert>

I enjoyed the film during the screening though the second and third act felt really uneven in its pacing as well as the overall atmosphere. The opening shot was brilliant, and was just that: Young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) shoots his mark right on schedule, no hesitation; like a boss. Those first 2 minutes of the movie basically set the tone for the first act. It was shocking, it was cold, it was exactly what the trailers indicated the film would be like.

Unlike Total Recall, which shows us its vision of the future, Looper tells us through Joe's monologue, and through an almost POV approach to establish the environment where the fights and climax are (where we expect) to take place later. The future portrayed is perhaps closer to home but we mostly see two extremes: the slum-like, crime-infested underworld of urban city, and the traditional farmland lightly fashioned with hovering watering systems that would make FarmVille enthusiasts (addicts) jealous.

In this respect I think the film doesn't do very well, at least in the sense of creating a conceivable future. There is little explanation of why the future from the perspective of the plot's setting becomes seemingly totalarian where no one can escape the eyes of the government or law enforcement (imagine Google becoming the world leader and abolishes privacy). I say this because the whole purpose of the Looper program as described by Joe is to get rid of people in the past where killing and hiding corpses is much easier.

Unfortunately we only had one fast-tracked view of Joe's first time through the story's space time continuum (where he does kill his older self and enjoys his 30 years before being captured and sent back). It happens so fast that most people were trying more to follow Joe's 30 years than to appreciate details of the world as it progresses to the future from which old Joe is sent back. The rest of the future is left for us to imagine after a very basic description, mostly describing the crime syndicate than what the rest of the world is like. Maybe that's the idea but lets move on.

Both Willis and Gordon-Levitt's performances were good, though not great, and I honestly felt they could have shared some more dialogues and played around with the whole "how will I become you". I guess the idea was that Willis is a reformed, reborn man after having met his Chinese wife some time in the future, having been rehabilitated from recreational drugs and also ended his life as a hitman. That's another thing, if he's stopped fighting for like 7 years prior to being sent back into the past for his execution how is he still so good, taking down not only his younger self but also the entire looper organisation? I guess it's because he's BRUCE WILLIS! Ahh, beautiful 80's action cliches.

While I enjoyed this film, the movie does have problems.

The first problem I had was this whole idea of the "Rainmaker", who is basically a kid born with exceptional telekinesis ability mostly drawn out during emotional situations. I think his name was Syd or something. So old Joe, after dispatching his executioners in the future, still chooses to travel back in time so that he can kill the Rainmaker, who in 2044 was still a kid living on a farm with his stepmum/aunt. By the end of the film we learn that it is because old Joe kills his mother during the confrontation that he harbors anger and hatred, thus motivating him to step up the crime ladder and creating the Looper program. This closes the continuum's loop and prompts young Joe to kill himself to rid everyone of the horrible future that would have eventuated.

Putting aside the farfetched idea of '10% of people mutating to have telekinesis' (X-Men ripoff), if the Rainmaker does become so powerful that he not only controls all criminal activities in the future, but also destroys entire cities using his telekinesis, why didn't he send more protection for his own younger self? Or save his mum from old Joe? The science in the film's world indicates it follows the self-consistency principle of time travel the closest, so he knows whatever he changes in the past will immediately affect his future rather than branch off to another parallel timeline (i.e. there is one reality, one spacetime continuum and all paradoxes created by time travellers will resolve itself). I mean if they were okay to send back Abe permanently (head of the present day looper organisation), I would assume the Rainmaker could have given instructions to Abe to keep an eye out for, well, the film's equivalent of the anti-Christ. Just saying.

The second problem, and probably a more serious problem from a storytelling point of view, is the disconnection between the young Joe's life and the old Joe's life, especially the love interests. There were zero attempts to try and reconcile them. First we are shown Joe has a lover in the present day, whom later we discover had a child old Joe hesitates to kill. Then we are shown that Joe has a wife in the future (different girl), but then as the story progresses in the second half Joe meets and gets in bed with Sara (farm mum). We get a brief scene showing that old Joe's memories are being modified to include these encounters and yet somehow still end up meeting his future wife, but this is never addressed in the busyness of dealing with the other loopers and trying to kill Seth (the kid version of the Rainmaker).

Through most of the second act as young Joe becomes acquainted with Sara I was honestly led to believe old Joe's life was gradually eroding due to the decreasing likelihood he would follow the same retirement path. Also he was fairly clean of drugs by the climax so there wouldn't be a need for old Joe to have someone clean him up 25 years down the track! Also the fact that young Joe made out with Sara I basically assumed that old Joe would not have a future with the Chinese lady any more. I think Rian Johnson (director) was aware of this flaw in his final cut, as he does add a scene at the end where Sara closes young Joe's pocket watch without revealing the photo side. Hmm actually young Joe wouldn't have that photo yet since it's only the old Joe who has encountered her in the future, so this scene might have been pointless. Never mind.

The third and biggest annoyance to me (before I move onto nitpicking) was Kid Blue, the young looper who is head of the "gat-man" and also tries desperately to impress Abe. This character was fairly pointless in the first half, seems to be young Joe's lesser rival and a relatively high up in the organisation. Through the entire film he is ridiculed, undervalued and tossed aside by Abe because of his incompetency. He later tries to earn Abe's approval by capturing old Joe on his own, which in turn led to the death of everyone in the looper organisation except himself. And furthermore, he pursues young Joe near the farm and ends up dying. And that's his story arc finished. In fact we don't even see him die with any dramatic facial expression. He is literally gunned down and the next scene is his corpse lying somewhere in the bottom left corner of the scene since our cameraman is focusing back on both Joes. Almost like "gosh that guy was a nuisance, now back to business."

There were a few scenes which hinted at a possibly deeper relationship between Abe and Kid Blue, suggesting either that Abe is Kid Blue's older self, or that Kid Blue was Abe's first pick. However this is neither explored nor confirmed, and even when he finds Abe dead there is no establishing shot of what their relationship might have been or were. This really really bugged me because aside from the main characters he was the only other character that had strong motivations, significant dialogue and screen time, so I wanted him to be more critical to the story's development.

Actually, Kid Blue reminds me of that Andrew Brandt from Equilibrium. He basically brings the protagonist (if I can call old Joe a protagonist) into the headquarters to their detriment. However in the larger picture he is neither remembered nor important from any of the characters' perspective. But thanks to his overzealousness we managed to get Bruce Willis in the middle of a group of bad guys. He will not leave without an incident.

But most of these problems are relatively minor compared to the enjoyment the film did bring me. The idea is cool, the acting is well done, anything that replicates Inception successfully deserves respect, and having Bruce Willis single-handedly take down all the bad guys, always a pleasure. I would say I enjoyed this more than the other films I've seen this year (except The Avengers), though far less than the films I believe it to be inspired by. Ultimately, time travel stories are hard to get right, if ever, and when you put Bruce Willis in the middle of it you know things are going to get ugly, but mostly in a good way.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Recommendation: Watch once at the movies, then wait for the DVD to go on sale.


Extra nitpicks:

• there are a few nudity/sexy scenes that were completely unnecessary, especially the one that helps establish the intimate relationship between young Joe and his stripper girlfriend. It actually complicated the story in a bad way since we discover later that she actually has a son. Is that son young Joe's or some other guy's. If it's the latter did Joe know about it? They don't resolve this arc and so it becomes one of many questions that is neither philosophically nor socially challenging. It becomes more like a TV soap's episodic cliffhanger to try and reel you in for the next episode, which there won't be any since young Joe is dead.
• the film's future world is confusing. We get told that it's virtually impossible to dispose of a body and not get tracked. Technically sending someone back in time is the same as kidnapping them and shooting them into space on a one-way rocket, right? I mean their phyiscal presence seems to be what's being tracked and even if they can't be found the fact that they're missing means an investigation would still be underway. Weird.
• the film's future world is really confusing. If the Rainmaker has such a powerful crime syndicate why can't they change how the tracking program works so that the people they want to eliminate are not tracked/monitored by the police or something? I mean if they can level cities at will I'm sure changing a few government policies isn't too much to ask for!
• the film's future world is also kind of dumb. Why would they send the people they want to eliminate back in time by only 30 years!?!? Yes, technically they don't exist yet so there's a legal looperhole. But if the bodies aren't disposed of properly, or if one of their marks escapes (like in the movie), they would leave something that could be traced, recorded, documented etc. Then 30 years in the future when the person goes missing they could just dig up the archives to look for anomalies in the past.
  
  If I were this crime organisation and needed to eliminate people via time-travel I would just send them back 100000 years before civilization was around, so that no matter what they did they were dead, and you'd save the money you spent paying those hitman whose job was just to shoot whatever popped up on the rug. But I guess if they did that, we wouldn't have this movie :)