Like what Steven Spielberg’s classic Jaws did for stupid dumb monster movies, The Host does, also, for stupid dumb monster movies. How? By humanizing the surrounding characters involved in the absurd ridicule to such a prolific degree that the corny monster of the blockbuster just becomes the metaphysical entity of the cause to tragedy rather than the experience of tragedy—that comes after and hits harder, so to say.
Similar to what people—who might be taking Joon-ho’s work a little too literally—wrongfully had to say about Snowpiercer’s exaggerated practicality in substitute to discussing the film’s thematic poignancy that uses fictionalization so sprucely in its favor, The Host isn’t necessarily looking for realism in the science-fiction-esc surface level schematics of its plot but in the delegated parallelism that can be made to what we ourselves would do, overcome, and sacrifice in a terrorizing force that we ourselves so ignorantly brought upon. The director has always been known to slyly satirize bafflingly corrupt events, and he does it so shrewdly in this creature-feature.
The characters in The Host aren’t perfect beings, as can be expected. In fact, their qualitative traits are quite centrally the issue with the world’s spite towards the individual. As Bong Joon-ho most rationally intended to say here in this two-hour spectacle, there isn’t one particular group conducting the army of raining disasters; it really is because of our inescapable, instinctive nature that will likely be the end of us—everybody’s a suspect… But probably mainly America according to Joon-ho.
As with any, family and self always come first before the preservation of the human race. The Host lets its audience know one last time that this is simply certain.
Verdict: B+
A South Korean Renaissance (Ranked List)
“The Host” is now available to stream on YouTube, Tubi, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, and iTunes.
Burning the Celluloid 
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