The Host Or The Movie Where Everything Needed A Kiss

Just in case anybody is not aware how absolutely amazing my Hubbin is, he voluntarily took me and baby sis to see The Host. This is a movie based on the book The Host by Stephenie Meyer, yes that Stephenie Meyer, the one who wrote the series that shall not be named.  My baby sis had recommended the book to me and I found myself actually enjoying most of it.  Copious amounts of teenage angst aside, I thought the book was very well thought out and the ideas had some originality to them. You can read my ramble on the book for more details of what I thought. Since I was up visiting her, and we both had read and mostly enjoyed the book, Hubbin was sweet enough to take us to see the movie (he even bought us chocolate!).

The movie was...long...really really long...with lots of kissing.  So much kissing, everything was about kissing.  When a character was mad they kissed, when they were sad they kissed, when they were happy they kissed, when they were bored, scared, tired, hungry, excited, dirty, clean, confused, whatever they kissed.  So if I had not read the book I would probably think that the invading aliens were just here for some kisses.  The visuals for the movie were pretty spot on.  Everything that was shown really captured what the author wrote in the book, so that was really cool.  My favorite was how they portrayed the actual physical being of the aliens, just spot on.  The casting was pretty well done as well, with all the requisite pretty young things, with just enough grizzled experienced folk to make things semi-plausible.  Saoirse Ronan (I love that name!) was cast as Melanie/Wanderer and did an excellent job at portraying the old soul in a new body. The only real issue I had with that character is that we don't get a whole lot of Melanie in the movie, there are
occasional flashbacks, but since they are mostly kissing we don't get a whole lot of Melanie's personality coming through...though to be honest she kind of drove me nuts in the book, so maybe less Melanie wasn't so much of a bad thing.  For as long as the movie was, they did not actually get a whole lot of alien history in to the story.  One of the things I loved about the book was that Wanderer was this revered soul that had traveled the galaxy and who's job it was to teach, first the other souls and then later the humans about all the places she had been.  I found this not only interesting, but very helpful in showing the reader that these aliens were not warlike conquering evil creatures.  In most cases they worked with "lower" life-forms to enhance the world that they came to.  It is made clear that humans are a very different species then ever encountered and that free-will from the host species is not really something they had to contend with before.  I thought that they came of a bit more aggressive in the movie, especially in regards to Wanderer who seemed less of a revered soul and more of your run of the mill soul who is only good to help interrogate the body it is inhabiting.  Hubbin did not find the movie aliens aggressive, he said that he got a sense that they were mostly peaceful, so that may just be my reading into things.  The other part I wished they had put in and did not was the fact that the aliens seemed to not want to put a soul into their own human babies.  Wanderer in the books says this will probably save humanity from further inhabitation because they will not want to have their human children "souled".  Other then these types of things the movie kept to the book surprisingly well, almost to its detriment because the pacing was really really slow.  There was a lot of sitting and gazing into space and
kissing.  I know I have mentioned this a bunch already but there was SO MUCH KISSING.  If they were not staring pensively into space they were kissing...all of them...all of the time!  Overall it was not a bad movie, just slow and not as rich and nuanced as the book, but also not quit as angsty so there is that.  The visuals were stunning and amazing, and the casting was pretty yummy so at least you had something to watch while they were kissing.  The music was awesome and watching the movie made me want to go reread the book. The contacts they used for the inhabited humans was a bit distracting and the shoes on most of the females were just hideous, but I guess that does not really have that much to do with the movie, also the aliens must have found a sale of metalliac silver spray paint, 'cause that was all over everything.  Overall I would give the movie 6 out of 10 alien soul invaders. Favorite line in the movie "kiss me like you want to be slapped!"
What did you think of the movie?  Do you find it odd when you wish there was more of a book in a movie and yet want the movie to be shorter?  How much kissing can there be in one movie?!?