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randall 
"I like to watch."
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 Posted - 08/20/2013 : 18:58:45
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OK, once again I've spent five minutes trying to see if there was an earlier thread. That's my limit. Earlier-thread-starter, sue me.
I so wanted to love this picture because it comes from Andrew Niccol, he of GATTACA and THE TRUMAN SHOW, and I understand that it's from a book by the TWILIGHT author and all, but still: Niccol is one of the very best people at imagining an off-kilter future. [Alex Troyas ain't so bad either.]
The problem, at least as I saw it, was the evidently thin source material. [I haven't read the book, or books, or whatever.] The "souls" from another planet invade Earth by residing inside human bodies -- only instead of malefic body-snatchers, they're actually relatively benign beings [after they've, um, STOLEN YOUR BODY and all]. They don't lie, cheat, kill, etc. Well, one earthly teen is so Special that she can co-exist with the ET, talk to it, etc. So for half the picture, poor Saoirse Ronan has to play herself in voiceover -- you know, the earth-girl coexisting with the outer-space "soul," called Wanda, don't ask. The bravely resisting humans [thank god for Bill Hurt as their leader, but what rock did that accent crawl out from?] are out in New Mexico somewhere and are raising wheat underground -- literally with smoke and mirrors! -- and Act II is all about racism, or species-ism, or schizophrenic lip-locking, or something.
There is a Seeker -- not Harry Potterish, much meaner -- who is, er, seeking "Wanda," and the survivalist humans don't trust her bipolarity [the worst bigots use the I-word, "it"]. And that's all we got.
As with all Niccol, it's actually lovely, especially in HD, but the same thing gets rolled around and around and around so much that your willing suspension of disbelief just surrenders and you start thinking about Jekyll & Hyde as the voiceover battles with the on-camera girl who has the identical voice. To me, the one original thing this picture has is the sense of the alien invaders as beings with ethics, and that probably comes straight from author Stephanie Meyer. I'd say rent it for visual beauty, but I take no responsibility if you wind up hating it. |
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The Host
