Trying to avoid the latest G.I. Joe movie this reviewer unfortunately went to see The Host instead, but probably should have gone to see The Croods, which is at least getting some good reviews as well as audiences.

Based on a novel by Stephenie Meyer, who also wrote the Twilight series, The Host is a science fiction/love story in which alien souls have taken over most of the people in the world, taking on their bodies but controlling their minds. You can tell them apart from the few surviving humans by the white circles in their eyes.

Saoirse Ronan plays a human who is caught by the aliens and taken over, but somehow still manages to maintain her human personality. She spends most of the movie as a split personality, alternately attracting and repelling the two males (Max Irons and Jake Abel) in her life who love one of her but hate the other. She also manages, along with her little brother, to join up with one of the few bands of still free humans, living in a cave in New Mexico.

None of this is believable and the movie is also surprisingly uninteresting, despite some nice art direction and some beautiful shots of Monument Valley. The best thing in the film is Ronan. She is a wonderful actress and manages to make her two characters in one body work most of the time. But even she is defeated by a poor script. Hopefully, fans of the novel will enjoy it more.

Rating: two deer out of five

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Alf Cryderman is a Red Deer freelance writer and old movie buff.