Ok, so before you get too excited about watching the first-ever teaser for the Stephenie Meyer adaptation “The Host”, a word of warning: there’s not much to see here.
That’s because with a release date more than a year out (March 29, 2013) and the film not yet in the can (the cameras started rolling just last month), there’s not really any finished footage from the Andrew Niccol-directed movie to draw from.
What we get instead is the very definition of a “teaser” – cryptic voice-over narration, a close-up on star Saoirse Ronan’s eye (or, rather, the alien-“infected” eye of her character, Melanie Stryder), and then brief flashes of a host (no pun intended) of other Earth denizens with the same extraterrestrial gleam in their gazes.
As teasers go, this one is pretty effective; it sets up its “Body Snatchers”-type premise well enough that it should appeal to general sci-fi die-hards as well as the book’s pre-existing fans. That said, my one big complaint here is that the images of “possessed” humans in the latter half look like a collection of cheap Photoshop jobs.
In any case, those who have already read and loved the novel won’t likely care that not much happens in the spot – though it will certainly serve as a painful reminder that, yes, they still have a looooong time to wait yet before the film hits theaters.
For those not familiar with the book, the basic plot centers on a teenage girl (Melanie) who valiantly struggles to maintain her humanity after her body is inhabited by Wanderer, a member of an alien race that is attempting to take control of the Earth’s human population.
My grade for the teaser: B-. After watching it below, rate it for yourself at top left!
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