Aliens versus teenage strop

Film review: The Host (12a)
Running time 125 minutes
Rating:***
After the huge success of The Twilight Saga, that expedition into the world of vampires, werewolves and soulful teens, author Stephanie Meyer – rather like JK Rowling – must have thought “What now?”.
Ms Rowling’s decision to go into the world of ‘adult’ fiction was one option, which has had mixed reviews.
Ms Meyer on the other hand, has opted for the safer territory of sci-fi, tapping into the current vogue of alien possession, invasion, and Mankind threatened with the latest film-of-her-novel The Host.
To make matters even more certain, the film is under the sure directorial hand of Andrew Niccol, who already has the impressive Gattaca and The Truman Show films of the genre under his belt.
The Host is a tale of possession by a super-intelligent but parasitic race called the Souls, who take over human bodies and minds to create an Eden-like world without disease, anger, or even impolite conversation.
The fact that they look like glowing, hairy slugs works against them, as does the fact that one or two particularly awkward humans resist the mind control of their hosts and create a resistance movement, based in an extinct volcano (actually Monument Valley).
Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) is one such awkward human who, when she is eventually caught and has a host called The Wanderer inserted, refuses to keep quiet, argues incessantly, and has temper tantrums at the back of her/Wanderer’s mind, which makes the alien wish he had never encountered teenagers.
There is a kind of understanding reached, which leads to all sorts of complications, especially as she/they have a nasty, single-minded Seeker on their tail (Diane Kruger) – who looks like the bendy female robot in Terminator 3.
In The Host, the sci-fi action is pretty much background ‘noise’ to the main story, that of edgy teenage love, an area where Ms Meyer has previous expertise.
In The Host, young Melanie falls for a strapping fellow fighter, while The Wanderer (neatly changed to Wanda later in the film) falls for another, different, young human male.
This leads to lots of silly ‘in-your-mind’ arguments with some of the most pretentious screen dialogue I’ve hard for a goodly while.
However, somehow, despite this and other plot weaknesses, the story works well for the audience at which it is aimed – that of young teens – and will be appreciated by them in spite of carping criticism by critics who may know what it’s like to be perplexed and incoherent, but for whom youthful life is somewhat hazy.