The host movie review

In the near future, a race of nomadic parasitic aliens -- called "Souls" -- have taken over humanity. The jellyfish-looking aliens are injected into humans, whose minds are then suppressed as the aliens take control, turning their hosts' eyes silver. Melanie Stryker (Saoirse Ronan), a member of the dwindling human resistance, purposely diverts a group of aliens by throwing herself out a window. But she survives and is implanted with her new alien Soul, Wanderer. Unlike other human hosts who fade away completely, Melanie's consciousness continues to speak to Wanderer and persuades her to evade her alien interrogator (Diane Kruger) and go to the desert hideout where Melanie's boyfriend, Jared (Max Irons), and little brother, Jamie (Chandler Canterbury), are staying. Only they don't see Melanie -- just the alien who's taken her body. Slowly, Wanderer -- dubbed Wanda by Melanie's wise uncle Jeb (William Hurt) -- starts to make alliances, including a confusing attraction to Ian (Jake Abel), Jared's more open-minded friend.

As sci-fi movies go, THE HOST is one part Invasion of the Body Snatchers and three parts maudlin romance. Director Andrew Niccol doesn't bother with much world building except for the fact that the pacifist Souls all have a thing for wearing shades of white and driving souped-up silver Lotuses; there's no real explanation for the hypocrisy of a supposedly pacifist alien race thinking that it's all right to parasitically control an entire species. And while reading the back and forth between Wanderer and Melanie made perfect sense in the book, the movie translates that by having a narrated dialogue with two different inflections -- Wanderer's smooth tones and Melanie's faux Louisianan accent.

While teen (and adult) viewers who are only interested in the steamy kisses and the mind-bending love quadrangle will be content, most audiences will laugh at The Host's unintentionally funny moments -- like pretty much every time the Melanie voice speaks. Ronan, who's riveting in films like Atonement and Hanna, is deserving of better, although at the very least she manages to pull off her romantic moments with both Melanie's love Jared and Wanda's suitor Ian with conviction. The movie is more of a frothy alien romance than a true science-fiction thriller

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Stephenie Meyer Misses Robert Pattinson And Kristen Stewart On Set

Stephenie Meyer has a lot to be excited about. "Breaking Dawn - Part 2," the final installment of her "Twilight" vampire saga, hits theaters later this year, and the author has already started on her next big-screen project. She is currently working on the set of "The Host," the film adaptation of her sci-fi romance novel.

When MTV News headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a behind-the-scenes look at the movie, Meyer told us how strange it feels not to have "Twilight" stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart hanging around on set.

"It makes it a lot calmer. I do miss them, though," she said. "It seems funny not to have Kristen here. 'I'm on a set, why can't I talk to Kristen?' That's a little funny."

Although she misses working with the actors she spent nearly five years with bringing Edward Cullen and Bella Swan to life, Meyer has welcomed the experience of filming "The Host." Along with giving audiences the chance to see a whole new cast of characters, it was an opportunity to escape the dark and gloomy weather in Forks. "This [set] has beautiful landscapes everywhere we've been, and so that's been kind of different, too," she said. "We're not in a forest where you can't really see. We've got all this beautiful stuff. It's great."

She particularly enjoyed filming on the cave sets. "It was so awesome. The cave set was enormous. It was vast," the writer said. "They're just so cool, so much fun to walk on. It was kind of like someone built something out of your imagination just for you."

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer: review

You might have thought there was no room for more in the bloated Twilight saga, which consists of four mega-tomes for teenagers relating the chaste love affair between a kindly vampire and a human girl. But there is. Stephenie Meyer has a story to tell and not even garlic will stop her. This mini-tome takes a minor character from the series, Bree Tanner, who (unfortunately for her) was vampirised. The novella follows her on the road to her death. Yes, she dies. Again. Didn’t guess that from the title, did you?

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephanie Meyer
This lack of suspense might have been mitigated by good writing or character development. But Meyer doesn’t let such things get in the way of her befanged juggernaut. The plot concerns a vampire army. These vampires are bad. No, really bad! They listen to loud bass-heavy music. Sometimes they flip over cars, just for fun. They are being created by a girlishly voiced vampirette to attack the Cullens (the main family in the saga). Bree and the others are kept subjugated in a cellar; Bree falls in love with Diego, a slightly older pretty vampire (“but then,” muses Bree, “who wasn’t pretty?”), and tries to work out what’s going on.
 

Meyer’s favourite tricks are lists and repetition: “The sound of his landing was too low to catch the attention of the crying prostitute, the zoned-out prostitute, or the angry pimp.” Her conversations are limited, as most people are so tongue-tied they spend their time staring at each other across tables (causing Bree to think, usefully, “I had sat like this before – across a table from someone”).
Sometimes Meyer accidentally channels P G Wodehouse: “A couple of kids temporarily lost limbs”, or “the breeze turned helpfully gentle”. At others, Napoleon Dynamite crops up: “Vampires with skillzzz.” When the vampire army attacks a passenger ship, it’s Enid Blyton: “That was amazing – three cheers for Riley!” shouts one of them as they sit surrounded by bloodied and gutted corpses.
 

This is a strange, chaotic, even tedious book, which you cannot read if you don’t know the series, and if you do know it, won’t enlighten you one bit.

TWILIGHT by Stephenie Meyer book review

There's a reason more than 10 million Twilight series books are in print. Twilight, the first in the series, is the addictive story of two teenagers –- Bella, a regular girl, and Edward, a perfect gentleman and a vampire. This is the type of book you might read in just a few sittings, becoming engrossed in its fantastical world and oblivious to your physical surroundings. While not the next great thing in modern literature, it's a fun book to get lost in and comes to an end much too quickly.

I need not say much about it, its already a big sorry huge hit. Twilight will almost certainly appeal to teenage girls and many women of all ages, but probably not to the majority of males. It's sure to make readers eager to devour the next three novels.

HOST by Stephenie Meyer book review

The Host is Stephenie Meyer's first adult novel. The human race has been taken over by parasitic but peace-loving aliens called souls. Melanie, the human host of a soul called Wanderer, is resistant and refuses to fade away, leading Wanderer on a journey unlike any she's experienced in her nine lives in other hosts' bodies around the universe. The Host is not Stephenie Meyer's best work. While the premise is intriguing, the story is slow and the characters are under-developed.