I haven't read the Twilight books or this one. I'm over forty after all. I have seen the Twilight movies, though. As for Andrew Niccol - Gattaca is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. And The Host rates way, way higher than those Twilights in my mind. There's none of the teenie-weenie chit-chat and bickering that really repulsed me in Twilight. And my question of why would a centuries old vampire prefer teenage girls was not answered there. This movie is different, it has none of the hole-filling that Twilight is filled with. Yes, the guys of the Love Triangle are pretty one-sided, but in a world with no education system intact one cannot expect everyone to be as well-read as Ethan is in Beautiful Creatures. I delayed watching The Host for a few weeks, as I was gathering my strength to suffer through yet another Twilight, but there was no such suffering - instead it was a very well-balanced film, that used minimalist - and Gattaca-like - visuals to describe a new world where body snatching has become mainstream. And it got me thinking: how old was Paul Atreides when he became The Emperor? OK, slightly older. But his son, Leto, when he took on The Golden Path? About the same age as our characters here. Oh, and what about Alexander The Great - how old was he when he had already taken most of the - then - known land as his real estate? Invasion of the Body Snatchers might be a benchmark to judge other similarly-themed movies by, but The Host rates quite high on my scale there. As for the casting, Saoirse Ronan was wonderfully present in my opinion and William Hurt is simply one of my favourite actors. Overall, The Host is about the "little things" like relationships and, as such, it is a film about us all.
