The Host (2006)
The Host
★★★☆☆
Directed by: Joon-ho Bong
Written by: Joon-ho Bong, Won-jun Ha and Chul-hyun Baek
Rarely do I find myself so torn between star ratings. I refuse to dip into the namby-pamby arena of half-stars, extending my five (or technically six) point scale to ten points just so I can split the difference between “It Was Okay” and “Didn’t Like It.” But let’s just say that while I’m settling on three stars for The Host, it’s really a two and a half star movie, one which I just barely tolerated above dislike but which I also came just short of feeling like I wasn’t sorry I had spent the time to watch it.
The real issue with The Host is that I admire it for trying something different. This is a movie that could have gone a half dozen different directions: Full blown monster horror pic; creepy enviro-action flick; tense suspense drama; political satire/allegory; subversive genre send-up; dark character drama with supernatural framework. Instead of picking one of these paths, The Host picks them all. I respect the moxie of the filmmakers for doing something that is so un-Hollywood (obvious guy says duh, this is a Korean film). However, in dividing the film’s—and the audience’s—time and attention into all these things, we end up with a mishmash of a picture that can’t seem to decide what, if anything, it wants to say.
There are pivot points in the movie where the filmmakers could have selected their vehicle and ridden it to whatever destination lie down that path. But each one is meticulously sidestepped so that we can have key (undeveloped) characters that aren’t introduced until well past the halfway point, a curiously unsatisfactory conclusion, a bizarre character event near the end that seems to have no impact on the protagonist, a lot of pretty rough CG effects and an awful lot of the main characters running around aimlessly for long stretches of the film. There is a metaphor in the characters actions for the writer’s intents, but like the writers themselves, I can’t be bothered to make it work. So my final recommendation is go watch The Host. Or don’t. Really, it doesn’t matter either way.