The Host #2 by Imogene

The Host

Directed: Andrew Niccol

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Chandler Canterbury, Rachel Roberts, Diane Krugar

Genre: Action, Adventure, Romance

Stars: 3.8/5

Hi, so if you've read my previous encounter to the film 'The Host' (if you haven't, I'd recommend you do here) you'd know that I went to see it without subtitles and that I misunderstood quite a lot during the film. (So I thought) I went with Eleanor yesterday to see it again with subtitles, and whilst I did wonder if I’d get bored watching it twice over.. I didn't. For me, I was looking forward to finally putting them few missing jigsaw pieces into the puzzle!

I was surprised by how accurate my first review was! There were quite a few sections of the film that I missed out and some vital information which made me go "Oh." But in general, I did get the gist (This makes me a very happy girlie!).

My Subtitled Review

The parts I was confused about & now understand.

• ·         I was confused about what the Hosts (which I find out are called ‘Souls’) were doing there and what their thoughts were about the planet. I understood that they saw us humans as violent and ruining the planet and they were there to clear that up and make Earth a better place to live.
• ·         The Souls have occupied many planets.
• ·         That once the Soul was inside the body of the occupant, that the mind of the human in this case, was still alive and slowly fade as the human gives up hope – but a few live on as they’re determined to survive and come back.
• ·         That Seeker wrestled with her Human Lacey for several years. (I didn’t see this during the first time, as I didn’t hear the little things that Seeker said to herself like “I am in control” and “You think you’re better than me?”) and became more apparent with the moment when she shot another Host and started her own war
•       The ‘Stars’ in the cave were actually called Glow Worms.
• ·         The section in the caves where Uncle Jeb was talking to Wanderer and asked if he could call her ‘Wanda’ to which she agrees. Also how he found the caves and that it was in fact an old volcano.
• ·         After Wanderer found out about the Doctor killing the Souls, that when she went to the hospital she claimed some pods and told the doctor that you can take the Souls out of the body by showing love.
• ·         I understood more about what happened after the ‘months later’ when, Wanda, Ian, Jared and Melanie were driving in the car and then bumped into what they thought were Hosts, but it was a bunch of Humans and a Host that had switched sides to be with the Humans. (This was good and glad made sense!)

I think in all honesty that the reason I probably understood the film quite a lot at the first time is probably is because the story line isn't a massively developed nor ‘deep’, so it makes it a fairly easy film to follow. I mean I’d watch it again – maybe not for a long time as I feel like I’m going insane watching it so close together. (haha!)

I still only gave the film a 3.8 rating simply because I didn’t learn that much that was new, the little details, apart from the brother thing and Seeker didn’t make the whole film a “WOW”. Maybe I just expected so much more from the film after seeing Twilight? I just wish I got that feeling that everything makes so much sense and I didn’t.. I cant say it’s now on my favourite films ever list.

The Host - A Non-Subtitled Review by Imogene

 The Host

Directed: Andrew Niccol

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Chandler Canterbury, Rachel Roberts, Diane Krugar

Genre: Action, Adventure, Romance

Stars: 2.5/5

 (Possible Spoilers)

My Non-Subtitled Version

My sister contacted me and said she wanted to go and see ‘The Host’. I did, but this version was going to be non-subtitled, and I was dubious of whether to actually go, but she offered to pay, so it swayed my thoughts. Now I know I vowed pretty much to never go to another non-subtitled film, but I knew in a few weeks time I would be going to see it again with subtitled. So in the end I decided I would do a 2-part movie review, one with and one without, and as an experiment, how much I understood with and without. So here goes..

I tried to read this story soon after the Twilight saga, and I found it incredibly difficult to follow, so soon I left it, even though it was written by the same author as Twilight. I imagined it would just as easy reading, but struggled to get into the plot – It felt like it took forever to get no-where! So it wasn’t until I saw the Trailer for the film that I took an interest in it again and possibly if I went back to the book now I may enjoy it more so.

Visually I found the film really interesting, (especially the eyes!) The film was one of them films where if you didn’t hear the speaking, then you’d miss out on the important stuff like how they explain how the planet now works and what the hosts’ reason for being about, but I missed all of this and I found it frustrating. I think I would’ve coped better if there wasn’t so much background music whilst they explain things. For a Deaf person, this film really wasn’t the best, even at the best times! There were a lot of scenes in the dark and underground which caused lots of shadows that covered people’s faces as they spoke, and there were echo’s as they walked around the cave. So it wasn’t filmed for the Deaf in mind, I have to say!

But even I found in the daylight, the camera didn’t focus on any of the faces for very long. This was really annoying, especially when there was one person standing in front of the other speaking and they were in focus on the person in front, so it wasn’t easy to lipread!

However, I did learn some things, and I did understand the voice of Melanie inside wanderer, which I thought was surprising, but I don’t know if that was due to volume?

I have to say I found the storyline very interesting even though I probably missed a lot of the facts, but it was a film I could get the gist, just by looking at it and by the way they acted and look – And I relied on this loads!

So this is what I thought the plot was about:

There was this girl called Melanie who had a brother called Jamie who were humans hiding away from the hosts with this group. The hosts were about peace and honesty, and no host could lie about what they were doing, or anything, they trusted with everything. One night the group go to this building where the Hosts are trying to find them, to turn them into one of themselves. Melanie left her brother and promised she’d come back, only to get chased by the Hosts and later in the film we find out that the group kill themselves rather than be turned into a Host. (To stop the Hosts extracting their thoughts and memories on finding the other humans!) She jumped out of a storey window, only to survive the fall and they turn her into a Host.
She then wakes up, then walks to the bathroom and you hear Melanie screaming and shouting from Wanderer’s head, and that Wanderer can talk back to her. (This makes things interesting!) They have a very complicated relationship between each other in the beginning, as they clashed to control the body and mind. There is a lot of flashbacks if Melanie’s memories of her and her boyfriend Jared (I think this was his name?) Wanderer was interrogated by another Host for Melanie’s thoughts on where the other humans she was with are. (I later learned in the film that she tricked Wanderer, by showing her not the true version of the places, to save herself and the others) Melanie manages to get Wanderer on side to try and find her brother and do her promise of going back to him. They manage to escape and get a car to go back to the group, she tricked her multiple times to cover the tracks of where she was going. They crashed the car and she had to walk through the desert to get there, she collapses and her ‘Uncle’ finds her and gives her water, but they don’t believe it’s her as she is in a Host body now. (They knew she was a Host as she had a ring of blue in her eyes)

There was a large part of the film where they weren’t sure whether Melanie was still inside Wanderer, but they start to believe to think that she is, and slowly they begin to trust her. Not after several attempts from a few people to try and kill her. This part of the film was a good way to get to know both, Melanie and Wanderer. We learnt that they both have a very caring side, and are both genuine souls – however Melanie was stronger willed! It was strange for them both to be leading this life together, yet separately. They become friends. There becomes a love triangle (Stephenie Meyers likes her love triangles, doesn’t she?!) but this is where I get confused as to who is exactly in the love triangle. As I thought Wanderer falls for her protector, but I’ve read that it’s Jared – So this is something I want to work out when I watch it subtitled!

Wanderer starts understanding the way of the human race and finds sympathy for Melanie’s group. She helps protect them from the Hosts, and makes a bond with them.

Wanderer finds that they have done experiments on extracting the soul of the Host out of the human bodies and she finds some dead – this leads to her being scared for her own life as they promised they wouldn’t hurt her. She makes a decision that Melanie needs to have her life back, so they do the operation on her (she expects to die) only for her to wake up in another body, of another who is dead.

The film was really emotional at times, although when my sister was red faced and crying, I wasn’t – so this definitely makes me realised that I missed out on the sad stuff! So I can’t wait to see it properly with subtitles and be able to understand it fully.

Please don’t take my wording on the plot as I’m probably very wrong in a lot of areas but it’s a deaf girl’s view on the film – and I hope it shows you exactly how difficult it is to miss out on vital parts to the storyline.

I did enjoy watching the film, but there’s only so much enjoyment you can get out of not understanding the film – It probably would’ve been much more successful if I had read the book then I’d know what was happening..

I give this film 2.5/5 stars as I couldn’t follow the storyline very well and also the voices wasn’t clear nor in focus – I understand that normal hearing people wouldn’t have a problem with this, and it appears there wasn’t, but for me it made the viewing not a very good experience. But, it had a decent story line and some decent eye candy, so it had some good points ;)

Identity Thief Review: Eleanor

Identity Thief

 Director: Seth Gordon
Running Time: 111 minutes
Cast: Melissa McCathy, Jason Bateman

 

So they say that honesty is the best policy. I didn’t actually want to go and see Identity Thief. I really wanted to see The Host which came out on the 29^th March, however the subtitles website told me there were no subtitled screenings of it this week nearby. The Majestic Cinema in King’s Lynn hasn’t shown any signs of subtitled films (STILL!) so I looked at the Norwich cinemas.

The only film that even sounded remotely interesting was this one, which even after watching the trailer didn’t give me ‘I-must-see-this-NOW’ feeling. It gave the impression that pretty much all the good bits were in the trailers and that I wouldn’t actually miss out on much if I missed the film.

However, with it being the Easter Holidays and finally having some time available to do whatever I want (with the hope of seeing some decent subtitled films) I was determined to make the 1 hour and 15 minute trip over to Norwich.

To summarise the film; Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) is a family, mild-mannered man with a rubbish paid job. He finally gets offered a much better paid job but unfortunately is the victim of identity theft, damaging his wallet, his criminal record and credit rating. His identity has been stolen by Diana (Melissa McCathy). The police being pretty much useless, Sandy decides the best way to prove his innocence and identity is to get Diana himself and bring her back to be arrested. This isn’t as simple as he expects and lots of adventures and mishaps occur.

OK, where to start… Yes the film had lots of funny one-liners/moments in it but they were all produced by Jason Bateman and Melissa McCathy who had amazing on-screen presence. I remember Melissa from Gilmore Girls (which I used to be obessed with) and always found courage and strength from her confidence. She is quirky and fun, unashamed to be ashamed with the ability to be serious too. This film however, was a bit thin with the plot-line, constant darting around and scene fillers. For instance;

1.    There was a scene where Sandy and Diana had to sleep in a wood which was apparently a short-cut. Sandy gets a snake wrapped round his neck and Diana has to beat the snake off with fire. It was unnecessarily violent and quite traumatic when the film already felt quite long and unending.

2.    There were 3 people after Diana for various reasons. 1 was a bounty hunter and 2 were people working for someone in jail who wanted her (which I don’t remember being explained). None of these hunters got anywhere near her, and eventually got themselves caught up in a weird police investigation and arrested, never to be heard of again.

Regardless of the thin plot, I found Bateman and McCathy enjoyable and thought their acting brought the film to life. Next time, however, I will simply wait for a film I actually want to see rather than hoping for the best and driving that hour and 15 minutes journey.

I will give this film 2 out of 5 stars simply because of the amazing cast.

**