Finally Watched The Host

Wow. I seriously lose track of time. When I rented the movie tonight, I was thinking it had only been a couple of months since I’d read the novel. Boy was I a little off. A quick check in my Kindle library shows I bought it in March. Almost six months ago. And I started reading as soon as it showed up on the screen.

Time flies, right?

So back to the movie…

I’d considered going to the theater to see it, but then decided not to. The book was 656 pages long, and I read it in about two and a half days (because that’s pretty much all I did in my spare time). I didn’t see how they could possibly condense that much story into a two-hour movie and stay true to it….especially given that it was a Stephenie Meyer flick, and the Twilight series veered off course many a time. (the greenhouse scene comes immediately to mind…and still annoys me)

Perhaps it was the six month space of time between reading and watching, but I thought they did a remarkable job with the movie. Of course the screen writer couldn’t possibly include all of the elements, but there enough that I was just as captivated watching it…and I may wind up seeing it again before the rental period is up.

In fact, I’ll probably wind up buying it…which is what I wish I’d done in the first place. Except I thought it was going to suck, so why waste an extra ten dollars? Of course I wound up loving it as much as I did the book. And I kind of want to read that again because now I have a picture in my head of what the main characters look like.

At first I wasn’t impressed with the actress who played Melanie and Wanda. She didn’t look anything like I’d imagined her, but it didn’t take long before I changed my mind. Saoirse Ronan was perfect in the role.

Max Irons and Jake Abel nailed Jared and Ian, though now I’m on the fence about who I like the most. In print, I was Team Ian all the way. Now I think I’m Team Switzerland. That doesn’t surprise me though. I’ve loved Jeremy Irons for years, so it stands to reason that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. At least not in this case.

The biggest surprise was William Hurt. I’ll be honest and admit that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie with him in it before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Jeb…but he, too, was perfect, and I loved his movie version, too.

Another surprise was how funny the dialog between Wanda and Melanie turned out to be. I don’t remember laughing much while reading the book, but I did a number of times while watching the movie.

Casting Diane Kruger as the Seeker was a great choice. It was hard to believe she was the same woman from the National Treasure movies, but she did a fine job. I hated her just as much on-screen as I did on the written page. There were zero redeeming qualities about her in either medium.

The supporting cast members were also great, the special effects pretty awesome, and overall I’m really glad I was bored enough to watch it tonight. The end was exactly what I’d hoped it would be – and I cried, even more than I did with the book.

Basically, all I can say is if you’re like me…and you put off seeing The Host because you thought it would be lousy…it isn’t. Far from it, in fact.