 
|
|
 |
|
The Host
by Magnolia Home Entertainment
| List Price: |
$26.98 |
| Price: |
$24.49 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| You Save: |
$2.49 (9%) |
|
|
DVD
MAGNOLIA HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Publisher: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Format: Anamorphic, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
A creature plunges from the han river bridge into the river emerging on its shores for a feeding frenzy upon onlookers. When a young girl is snatched in the melee her family set off to recover her from the monster that the government claims to be a host of an unidentified virus Studio: Magnolia Pict Hm Ent Release Date: 07/24/2007 Run time: 119 minutes Rating: R
Aficionados of movie monsters will find things in The Host that they have been waiting to see all their lives: a monster lazily unfurling itself from the girders beneath a bridge, for instance, or a view from a moving elevated train that frames the monster as it gallops lustily across a park filled with scattering locals. If the realization of a creature were all this movie had going for it, director Bong Joon-ho would have enough to be proud of, but The Host offers more food for thought, and plenty of food for the monster. Bong creates both a deeply eccentric comedy about family and a cheeky gloss on political currents. The monster is created when a U.S. military doctor (Scott Wilson in an unnerving cameo) orders a South Korean soldier to discard chemicals into the Han River in Seoul. Sure enough, a toxic monster is born, as we see in an opening reel that is surely the most exhilarating monster intro in years. Our central figure--of the human variety, that is--is played by Song Kang-ho (who also starred in Bong's Memories of Murder), as a hilariously lazy slob who must fight to discover what happened to his daughter after she was snatched up by the creature. Along the way, the film makes some pointed cracks at the ease with which governments can exploit public fear for their own purposes, and there's some satire aimed at U.S. intervention in global affairs. The film has some serious lulls, and would have been a tighter, crazier head-rush if it were 90 minutes long instead of two hours. But in general this is a much smarter Godzilla movie than Godzilla movies ever were. --Robert Horton
| Customer Reviews: |
|
| |
| LUCKY IT CAME WITH A NICE, EMBOSSED, MATTE/GLOSSY COVER... |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
 |
|
... Or I wouldn't have anything good to say about this movie which seemed to me to be half way between foolish and moronic, with writing that was between illogical and inept, acting that was between somnambulistic and hysterical. Entertaining half way between root canal and terminal constipation. (I am sooo mad at m'self for 'just taking a chance'.)
|
| Grossly over-rated bore! |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
|
|
Except for the CGI effects, this was no better than one of those 3rd rate Godzilla sequels. Don't waste your time or money! Dialog? Laughable! Idiot plot? You bet. Comparisons to true classic monster/horror/sci-fi movies? Laughable! There was more tension in final installment of American Idol than there was in this "fish story." The holes in the plot are too numerous to mention! If you must see it, rent it from Net Flix but I warn you...The Host is one of the lamest sci-fi/horror movies made in the last quarter century!
|
| One for the critics, not the punters |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
 |
|
Western critics went ape for this Korean movie when it was released. Therefore, we can provide the following tips to those who aspire to make a critically-acclaimed monster movie:
1. Sideline the actual monster, which incidentally looks pretty good in Host (at least from a distance) in favour of a nasty, paranoid government-is-after-us thriller plot.
2. Have as central protagonists a bizarre and unsympathetically idiotic family who are poorly characterised and resemble hackneyed archetypes.
3. Make sure everybody other than the protagonists is either actively despicable or callously uncaring.
4. Include an excessive amount of, often embarrassingly unsuccessful, slapstick comedy sequences.
5. Lace the film with absurd anti-American themes and subplots.
It's also probably better that you don't have too much in the way of narrative structure or suspense--that would be all too "Hollywood".
For those who prefer their monster films a little more engaging and a little less aggressively middle-brow, I would recommend steering clear of this entirely. Get the fallible, but at least fun, Cloverfield instead.
|
| Misses the mark. |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
|
|
True it has intelligence (the monster). But as monster films go. Give me the lovable roaring Godzilla or Gamera.
This is simply my opinion but it was like "Reno 911" chasing a monster.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry most of the time. At the start I thought is was going to be a comedy given the clumsiness of the monster as it chased the people around. Second, where was the military? All I saw were people driving disinfectant trucks. And at no time does anyone attempt to figure out the creatures origin. This is a laughable movie.
Thankfully I merely rented it. Do yourself a favor and rewatch a Godzilla, Gamera or other like monster films.
|
| Very cool monster movie! |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
 |
|
Save all the pompus, big vocabulary, I'm a critic reviews. If you like monster movies with awesome spfx then see The Host! If not then go watch the 56th remake of Pride and Predjudice. HD makes it look even better! We need more giant monster movies!!!
|
|
