The Host
Open Road Films | Release Date: March 29, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
35
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
13
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniMar 28, 2013
A silly, if fun, futuristic sci-fi romance. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 28, 2013
The Host will make perfect sense to 12-year-old girls, while their college-age sisters will probably laugh themselves sick and their mothers will look at Hurt and wonder when he got so old. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMar 27, 2013
The Host is top-heavy with profound, sonorous conversations, all tending to sound like farewells. The movie is so consistently pitched at the same note, indeed, that the structure robs it of possibilities for dramatic tension. Read full review
60
Film.comStephanie ZacharekMar 28, 2013
The Host gets bogged down in its “who’s kissing whom now?” dynamics, and it becomes all too easy to snicker at it. Read full review
60
Time OutBen KenigsbergMar 26, 2013
An "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" retread told from a postoccupation vantage point, this adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s YA romance novel unfolds in a dystopian future when alien parasites have nearly won the battle for Earth. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonMar 27, 2013
The Host is a step up from the endless metaphorical lectures and gaping plot holes of Niccol’s last film, In Time, but its muffled emotions, delivered with Twilight-esque blank-eyed calm, put it in the same category of a creative idea hamstrung in execution. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlMar 29, 2013
As with the Twilight series, The Host's infelicities—drab dialogue, ridiculous plotting, more emotional crises than there is story—are enlivened by its thematic eccentricities. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigMar 28, 2013
Saoirse Ronan's talents are wasted on a foolish dual part in this dull sci-fi fantasy. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMar 28, 2013
There's something about novelist Stephenie Meyer that induces formerly interesting directors to suddenly make films that are slow, silly and soporific. Read full review
50
VarietyScott FoundasMar 28, 2013
Extravagantly silly but undeniably entertaining sci-fi soap opera. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMar 28, 2013
'Twilight' of the Body Snatchers, without much urgency or sexual heat. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 28, 2013
The Host doesn't strive for social allegory, as previous body snatcher flicks have done with the Red Scare, civil rights and Watergate. If anything it's merely a teenage girl's fantasy checklist for prom. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesApr 3, 2013
This film adaptation feels like YA, with cat’s-cradle love matches, soft-focus sexuality, and a main character who never satisfactorily makes the transition from page to screen. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMar 29, 2013
Niccol and Meyer -- who co-produces this, her first post-"Twilight" film -- choose to trade away any shred of the ripe social subtext that has made other body-snatcher films so rich. In its place: the kind of supernatural, star-crossed romance that generates so much swooning from Team "Twilight." Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanMar 28, 2013
Watch closely and you might even spy a better film inside, straining to break free. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 27, 2013
The movie, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer of “Twilight” fame and directed by Andrew Niccol, is just kind of dumb. Like the more famous books and movies, about a love triangle between a vampire, a werewolf and a human girl, it often plays like a teenage girl’s idea of how literary romances play out. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 29, 2013
To work, The Host would have required a visionary interpretation rather than the mundane telling that Niccol opts for. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 28, 2013
The Host basically comes down to a vote for Team Jared or Team Ian. I voted myself into oblivion about half an hour in. Niccol, who once added mystery and suspense to the sci-fi of 1997's "Gattaca," is no match for the giant marshmallow that is The Host. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 28, 2013
It’s a mushy and unsuspenseful melodrama. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMar 28, 2013
The story goes slack onscreen, so much so that the movie's two-plus hours will seem an eternity. Read full review
30
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 28, 2013
Dopey, derivative and dull, The Host is a brazen combination of unoriginal science-fiction themes, young-adult pandering and bottom-line calculation. That sounds like it should work (really!), but it never does, largely because the story is as drained of energy as are its moony aliens. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyMar 28, 2013
Ronan, youthfully elegant as always, tries hard, but the material defeats her. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineMar 28, 2013
Its title, very graciously, doesn't end with a "Part 1," but The Host sure has enough plot points and ideas to fill two installments. Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickMar 28, 2013
A long, tedious and often unintentionally hilarious adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s sci-fi follow-up. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldConnie OgleMar 28, 2013
An invasion of the body snatchers is preferable to realizing that the true horror perpetrated here is not on the characters but on the audience. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 28, 2013
The film may as well be titled "Stephenie Meyer's Waiting Around." Read full review
20
Total FilmCurtis WoloschukApr 7, 2013
Steven Spielberg famously retained his childhood sense of wonder. On this evidence, Meyer has maintained a nine-year-old's notion of titillating romance. Read full review
0
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMar 29, 2013
It's really a dramatic sinkhole. Read full review
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