As humans, we sometimes forget the little things that bond us together. For instance, the joys of a beautiful sunrise, or the fact that we are four and half months into an existence that does not include an impending addition to The Twilight Saga. Too bad its author, Stephenie Meyer, and director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, In Time) had to go and ruin that peace with The Host, a film so vapid and hollow that audiences will find themselves yearning for the days of Bella Swan and her sparkly suitor.

In The Host, Earth has been overtaken by a body-snatching alien race known as the Souls. Identified only by their eerie glowing eyes and blank stares, the Souls believe humans have carelessly stripped Earth of its beauty and, therefore, do not deserve to inhabit it any longer. And like any good alien race, they plan on taking their new home by force — inserting themselves into human hosts and exterminating the person from within. Most humans are simply overpowered by the Souls and die off, but not Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), a headstrong teenager that refuses to give up even after she is captured and implanted with a Soul nicknamed Wanda, short for Wanderer. As each fights for control of their shared vessel’s consciousness, Melanie and Wanda flee to one of the last human resistance bases (which lies in an inactive volcano in New Mexico, no less), where they fall for two too-pretty-for-the-apocalypse boys and help batten down the hatches for a fight against a looming army of Souls.

What is fascinating (and maddening) about The Host is its incessant game of narrative Russian roulette — firing off outlandish twists and boring turns in the hopes that something might logically take hold in this poorly structured and blankly written film. Be it the love square between two girls in one body who love two boys in separate bodies, or the “science” based autopsies of Soul-inhabited bodies, each plot point is more outrageous than the last — dovetailing the film into an unintentional hilarity that only dampers any legitimate intentions it once had.

As one might assume, the Melanie/Wanda dynamic is supposed to be the heart of the film. Yet, the only way Melanie breaks through is via a nagging, disembodied voice-over that, after half an hour, becomes the equivalent of a ringing in your ear that won’t go away. Wanda, meanwhile, maintains a monotone and limited range of emotions similar to Kristen Stewart’s famously inert Bella Swan from Twilight. As such, Saoirse Ronan, a gifted young Oscar-nominated actress for her role in Atonement, is wasted on two characters worth of thoughtless swill. Thankfully, she does what little she can with the back and forth switches between the calm exterior of Wanda and the angsty interior monologue of Melanie — a role that could have been much worse in the hands of a lesser actress.

The biggest groan of the film comes from just how blatantly it emulates its vampire-werewolf-lovin’ sibling with overly complicated and swoon-heavy romance. Here, the battle of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob is replaced with the even more absurd opposition of Team Jared (Max Irons) vs. Team Ian (Jake Abel). After being inhabited by Wanda, Melanie is faced with convincing her alien-hating boyfriend Jared, a resistance fighter, that she isn’t dead — something she must do through Wanda. However, this is further complicated when Wanda, still in Melanie’s body, discovers she has feelings for Ian, a resistance fighter alongside Jared. It’s here that the film reaches preposterous new lows, with lengthy brooding on the male front and even one eye-roll worthy scene where Wanda forces each boy to kiss her in the hopes of luring a jealous Melanie to the surface.

Even William Hurt, an Oscar-winning actor, is clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel as Jeb, Melanie’s uncle and leader of the rag-tag resistance. Neither he, nor his fellow love-struck compatriots, are developed enough to justify any allegiance or empathy from the audience. As such, not much on either account is given.

The Host’s only redeeming quality may lie in its visual narrative, which seems to be where Niccol funnels every ounce of his creativity. In fact, if he got rid of the people and the story, he has himself a gorgeous nature documentary. With shots of the unforgiving New Mexico desert, the vast wheat field growing inside the volcano (thanks to some clever solar mirror tricks), and the rustic color palate of life in a now-alien world, Niccol evokes the harsh and barren post-invasion notions that his story should play on. Even the Souls’ material possessions — reflective chrome vehicles and all-white attire — provide a sharp juxtaposition to the world of the rebels. Niccol’s attention to detail here demonstrates his keen skill and eye, but he never pushes to make any connection with his visuals. Instead, he leaves them dangling as nothing more than pretty shots and long-winded distractions from his narrative train wreck, which is distracting enough.

As for the part of the tale that involves humanity’s last stand — which is trivially banished to the outskirts of the love story’s orbit — there is no evidence that screenwriters Niccol and Meyer care one way or the other how it plays out. Even with a brazen Seeker (Diane Kruger), the Souls’ version of police, nipping at their heels, there is no sense of urgency or danger for the humans. Intense sequences of evading the Seekers are perfect for filling the film’s marketing campaign with brief action-packed clips, but they do nothing in lengthy iterations. Instead, these moments stop and start as if the film’s screenwriting duo were a bad transmission.

It’s in these anticlimactic moments that The Host is dragged down and left as no more than a drab little attempt at capitalizing on the hordes of Twi-hards still mourning their blood-sucking franchise. No one will deny that Meyer knows a thing or two about going for the jugular of the supernatural romance crowd. Only, without the fangs of her vampires to guide her, she may be a little more lost than she cares to admit.

Rating: 1 out of 4 stars

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Featured image: Jake Abel and Saoirse Ronan star in “The Host,” the big screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling book, which opened on March 29, 2013. Photo Credit: Alan Markfield, Open Road Films 2013.