'The Host' is a keeper. The all-time box office champ in South Korea, it has now been unleashed--not unlike the monster in the movie--upon the American public.It is constantly surprising, delightful & terrifying all at once--as one critic notes, it is "wonderfully weird and hugely entertaining". Despite having just quoted a reviewer, I'd advise one not to read most reviews of the film; while they are all unanimously singing its praises, many twists in the plot are revealed--and much of the charm of the film is in its twists & turns. There are two focal points in the film; there is, of course, the monster, a spectacular creation that puts the big-budget Godzilla of 1999 to shame. But there is also a dysfunctional family, seen in this photo, that has one critic describing this
film as 'Little Miss Sunshine Meets Jaws'. Then on top of it all, like the whipped cream on a banana split, is a political satire showing the buffoonish ways government agencies react to a new, very weird, enemy. (You'll see the U.S. military committing the 'original sin' leading to an ongoing catastrophe.) As 'The Passionate Moviegoer' says, in a short (please read!) review that gives away nothing, the film is...
made with extraordinary intelligence and style and surprising flashes of humor, "The Host" in the end is spellbinding, a sneaky celebration of what movies are supposed to be all about.
