Can't muster up huge enthusiasm for a review of this, so it might be briefer than usual, but I'll try my best. In fact, as I suspect is often the case, if there is not much to say about a film that probably reflects its general quality.
The story? Well, it's your average tale of young love, picnicing by South Korea's Han River, on a beautiful, bright, summer's day, gazing longingly into one another's eyes, the sweet echoes of the water meandering delicately in the background, when... everyone is attacked by a kind of giant, mutant, tadpole which, as all tadpoles surely do, means serious business. The rest of the film is spent half following an excruciating family melodrama and half trapping and killing the ludicrous specimen in question.
The problem with this is that it is territory that has been very successfully ploughed before, by giant self-effacing earthworms, in 1990's brilliant Tremors, and will be again (looking at it from 2006), by a giant rampaging monster, in 2008's far brillianter, Cloverfield. I choose the two films deliberately, as The Host has neither Tremors' charm and zest for life, nor Cloverfield's spectacular originality, scope and suspense. Of course, there are notable echoes of this in Cloverfield's giant footprints and it would be churlish to deny that, but they are distant echoes at that. The Host is a film that can't decide which of the two it wants to be, a. Tongue in cheek monster rampage a la Tremors, or the equally hilarious Critters - "they have weapons", "so what?", "fuck" (genius, though possibly not if you've never seen it). Or, b., Monster rampage movie. And it hugely suffers as a result.
One particular reason it suffers is the ludicrously annoying and irritating family at the centre. I defy anyone not to want the tadpole to consume them all in one mighty tadpole gulp, particularly during one utterly hopeless, almost deranged, scene where they start fighting in a rescue shelter. All their skills are, of course, eventually combined in the final showdown, something you see coming right from the word go.
Actually, I'm realising as I write this that it deserves a much lower grade than I was originally going to give it. The tadpole emerging from the water scene for its initial rampage is very effective and enjoyable but, honestly, the rest is just frogspawn.
D
Oh dear, I've just found out there's going to be a sequel.
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