NYT Movie Review: The Host

The Host - Movie Review by Manohla Dargis - New York Times: "“The Host” is a loose, almost borderline messy film, one that sometimes feels like a mash-up of contrasting, at times warring movies, methods and moods. Mr. Bong would as soon have us shriek with laughter as with fright. But it’s precisely that looseness, that willingness to depart from the narrative straight and narrow, that makes the film feel closer to a new chapter than a retread.

Likewise it is Mr. Bong’s willingness not just to contemplate but also to deliver a worst-case scenario that separates “The Host” from run-of-the-mill horror and may have helped make it a runaway hit in Korea. Closer to home the film reminds me less of the usual splatter entertainments that clutter American movie theaters and more of another recent horror film, the one in which a newly thawed alien with a giant brain delivers apocalyptic warnings to humanity about its imminent future. I’m talking of course about the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”"