Safe Haven: A Review (Review #540)

SAFE HAVEN

Even by the shockingly low standards a Nicholas Sparks novel has, Safe Haven is particularly abysmal.  Safe Haven has not one, but TWO stupid and illogical twists that are insulting to the audience's intelligence.  It also has a lethargy to the story and two amazingly boring leads who either can't act or can't be bothered to. 

Katie (Julianne Hough) flees Boston after a brutal attack of some kind (the opening is a little vague) and boards a bus to Atlanta.  She flees Tierney (David Lyons), a persistent police officer determined to bring her in.  She eventually finds herself in Southport, North Carolina, and deliberately misses the bus to stay in this idyllic small town.  She quickly gets a job as a waitress at a local fish shop, a home at a safe distance from people (even if a woman named Jo--Cobie Smulders--lives close enough to start a hesitant friendship), and raises the attention of local hottie/widower Alex (Josh Duhamel).  Alex, who runs the bus stop/convenience store, has two children: adorable Lexie (Mimi Kirkland) and somewhat sour Josh (Noah Lomax).  For a widower he's quickly smitten with our lovely, who at first stays far away. 

Soon, however, Katie starts thawing, and she and Alex quickly fall in love.  It doesn't help that she carries this terrible secret, but so far she's bonding with the kids and Alex.  However, the obsessive detective will not give up, and he sends out an APB for an "Erin Tierney" as a person of interest for a murder charge.  We now get the first shocking twist...

...the alcoholic Tierney is really Katie's HUSBAND!  Using his powers, he keeps searching for Katie, whom she had stabbed in self-defense as she fled into the night.  Eventually he is discharged for drinking on the job (disguising vodka for water), but not before he learns she took the bus to Atlanta.  With that in mind, he drives drunk down the Eastern Seaboard until arriving at the Fourth of July festivities in Southport, North Carolina.

Katie, having been discovered, at first attempts to get away, but on threatening Lexie she pretends to want to go with him to Boston.  Still too late, as Tierney has set Alex's business on fire, where Lexie is trapped in what was "Mom's Room", where among his souvenirs Alex keeps letters written by his late wife for future events (Josh on Graduation, Lexie on her Wedding Day).  Alex, who sees the building a'blaze while shooting off fireworks, comes to the rescue and Katie shoots Tierney in the struggle.

With the 'bad man/obstacle' out of the way, Katie and Alex can now be together.  Alex then presents Katie with a letter addressed "For Her".  It was a letter written by Alex's wife to the woman who would take her place, and no we get the second shocking twist...

...Jo was really the ghost of Alex's wife!

For the life of me I cannot understand how Nicholas Sparks can be so popular when all his stories are A.) so similar to each other and B.) trash.   I have become convinced that Sparks has a template which he uses with every story, changes a few things, and then releases it to his fans and eager film producers willing to make money off sap for saps.

We have a beautiful but troubled woman (usually a woman) who meets a beautiful but lonely man (usually man).  Someone in the lonely person's life has died (death is a powerful tool in Sparks' arsenal).  There tends to be adorable children (I don't recall any teenager children save perhaps in The Last Song, but since the younger set are the troubled and beautiful people respective I cannot be certain they were teens).  There also tend to be elders of one of the lovers, who offers either advise or words of wisdom as to the obvious attraction Lover A. has to Lover B. Eventually there will be lovemaking, which will be remarkably chaste. There is usually some obstacle to our lovers, almost always in the form of a 'bad man', someone who wants the beautiful but troubled woman for himself.  Eventually the 'bad man' does something criminal and meets his own demise, which will free the lovers to be united.

Oh, yes, one more thing.  This bucolic world will always be in the South and will be a sort of Aryan fantasyland where despite being south of the Mason-Dixon Line there are no black people to be found.  There may be the occasional African-American somehow wandering around a group shot, but as far as I know Nicholas Sparks has never had black lovers, or an interracial romance, or a major character in his books who is black, or Hispanic, or Jewish, or Catholic, or biracial, or anything close to ethnic.

I confess I find this aspect of Nicholas Sparks' ouvre to be the most odious.  The fact that he always portrays the South (where his stories usually take place) as this wonder-world of model-like figures where no color is seen is grotesque and illogical.  It would be as if one were to write a book taking place in New Mexico and have no Hispanic or Native Americans anywhere to be seen.  It is disingenuous at best, downright bigoted at worst.  I don't believe Sparks himself holds racial animosity.  He just is either uninterested or unaware that black people fall in love too.



We're just pretty. 
Don't ask us to ACT!

Let us move away from the insipid nature of the plot (and one wonders whether any of Sparks' books are different one from another) and move on to other matters that damn Safe Haven to being one of if not the Worst Film of 2013.  Actually, I'm going to stay with the plot for just a moment. 

We have what is suppose to be a 'shocking' twist: that Tierney is really Katie's husband.  OK, if that is the case, then truth be told Safe Haven makes no sense.  If she didn't kill anyone (and the opening suggests as much), then why would anyone follow through on his APB if there was no murder?  Furthermore, if she can prove that she acted in self-defense (which is quite easy to do) why would she have to flee from Boston to Southport?  Why not divorce Tierney or seek shelter with the relatives who gave her money?

Why not just say "my husband is a drunken bully who beat me?"  Once in Southport, she could have just told Alex this and I'm sure the hunky widower would protect our fair maiden even if somehow (as we are told to believe) he can drive drunk without attracting attention from Boston, Massachusetts to Southport, North Caroline.  Furthermore, wouldn't he have been arrested for issuing a false police report and abusing his authority as a police officer?

We also have the second shocking twist to deal with.  Never have we been given any indication that Jo is Alex's late wife.  The idea of a ghost working and befriending Katie is already insulting to the audience, but providing no suggestion that Jo is the ghost of Alex's wife is just a cheat.  Of course, for that to work we have to assume that despite his passionate love for "Jo" he would keep no pictures of her anywhere.  Otherwise, Katie would have seen the similarity to her friend.

However, Dana Stevens and Gage Lansky's screenplay (as lousy as it is, though I can't help feel nothing could have improved the terrible book which they adapted) can't be blamed for the universally awful performances from all the cast.  Former underwear model Duhamel (who I think did a good job in Las Vegas) was so stiff and emotionalless, striking the same one-note over and over again.  However, a quick turn on the dance floor shows he is ready for Dancing With the Stars, where his co-star Hough has excelled.  However, as a dramatic actress, Hough is equal to Duhamel's non-acting (as if neither believes the situations they are being well-paid to perform).  A particularly embarrassing scene is where Alex confronts Katie about the "Person of Interest" flyer he finds at the police station (which no one else in town bothered to see).  It was never believable and they were so stiff and unconvincing with each other, almost as if they were still figuring out what the words actually meant. 

The children were horrid, Lyons was almost comical in his 'villainous' turn, and Smulders was convincing as a ghost because she acted as if she was dead.

If one is a fan of Nicholas Sparks' drivel, where beautiful (white) people in/from the South meet, fall in love, and overcome whatever obstacles a 'bad man' has for them while precious and precocious little children run around, then Safe Haven will work for you.  If however you have a functioning brain and aren't willing to suspend disbelief to where you are asked to accept idiotic nonsense as realistic or romantic, then you will find Safe Haven something to run from.  

DECISION: F       

Liz & Dick: The Television Movie Review

LIZ & DICK

It's for certain that Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor would have hated Liz & Dick, the television biopic about their tumultuous marriages.  First, both Mr. Burton and Miss Taylor HATED the moniker "Liz & Dick".   Second, while they both were smart enough to realize that their lives weren't like everyone else's, they as people at least had some depth to them.  There was scant attention paid to that department in Liz & Dick, which treated two genuine talents as shallow, drunks and narcissists.  Third and so far last, Liz & Dick had such an unwieldy structure that it opens itself up to accusations that it was rushed into production to cash in so soon after Taylor's death.  Liz & Dick could have worked, but aside from the notorious nature of the actress playing Elizabeth Taylor the film has other aspects that make it flounder.

The film takes place it seems on the last day in the life of Richard Burton (Grant Bowler), August 5, 1984.  He is writing a letter to his former second and third wife, Elizabeth Taylor (Lindsay Lohan).  We then slip into a dark room for what appears to be a joint 'interview' between Taylor and Burton, where they talk about their stormy relationship.  In between this 'interview', we go through their lives together: the boozing, the buying, Burton's lingering bitterness over losing Oscar after Oscar, his relationship with his disapproving brother Ifor (David Hunt) and eventually their first and second divorces.  Liz & Dick circles back to Burton's death, which causes Taylor to faint.  When visiting his grave some time later, she bids him farewell...


For all the hoopla and complaining people have thrown at Lindsay Lohan's performance as Elizabeth Taylor (and we'll get to that in a moment), I find the actual structure of Liz & Dick to be among its greatest flaws.  If I understand Christopher Monger's screenplay, this 'interview' is taking place inside Burton's head.  The segway from Burton's bedroom to Taylor and Burton on an empty set, conversing as they would to a reporter (or perhaps us) suggests as much.  However, would these two people whose lives were so public go out of their way to explain so much to us when they also weren't too thrilled that they were allowed no virtual breathing room?

Also, several times it seemed like Taylor and Burton were consciously putting on a show.  The ease in which they convince Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? screenwriter Ernest Lehman (David Eigenberg) that they can slip into vicious verbal fights almost makes it look like they weren't "the Battling Burtons" but actually quite fond of each other and willing to play up to their public image almost for kicks. 

It also reduces their extraordinary body of work (like Virginia Woolf and The Taming of the Shrew) to mere footnotes between screwing and boozing.  We don't ever get to see what made them either great actors (which they were) or fascinating to the public.   At what is suppose to be a screening for Virginia Woolf (where we see Lohan and Bowler recreate scenes from the film) Burton and Taylor are seen arguing when a fan compliments Taylor but doesn't appear to even notice Burton who is seated between them.  Since we've already seen "the Battling Burtons" pretend to fight with each other with the greatest of ease, how can we think that this argument is genuine?

Whatever love or passion Burton and Taylor had for each other, whatever consuming fascination they created just didn't come through in Liz & Dick.  There was nothing about the Burton/Taylor affair and romance in Liz & Dick that made one really care all that much about them.

If it is to be believed, Taylor was an insecure boor and Burton forever whining about losing the Oscar to the likes of Lee Marvin (in Cat Ballou over Burton's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold...admittedly an odd choice) or Paul Scofield (in A Man For All Seasons over Burton's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?).

Let's look over the leads.  Grant Bowler is an actor I think well of, and he did what he could as Burton.  He was there to give a performance, and while it is difficult to copy exactly Burton's rich voice he was strong as the Welsh boy who bore insecurity that he drowned in drink. 

As for LiLo, or La Lohan, or An Embarrasment to Western Civilization, Lohan was not convincing as Taylor.  She did her best we'll grant you, but sometimes she was so stiff one couldn't believe there was a genuine attempt at acting.  "I'm bored!  I'm so bored!" Lohan as Taylor shouts, but it sounds as if Lohan is referring to herself not as Taylor.  The scenes between Lohan and Bowler on what is suppose to be the beginning of their great affair on Cleopatra show Lohan was bad at trying to play TWO characters simultaneously: as Taylor playing Cleo, the Nympho of the Nile.

Actually, every time they are called to recreate scenes from their films, Lohan looks forced, especially compared to Bowler's more natural performance.  One that sticks out is when they are recreating The V.I.P.s,  and they begin fighting.  It seems strange that the arguments don't appear natural or realistic.  It almost is cartoonish, and Lohan is the worst of the two.

That isn't to say she was all bad.  Somehow, she wasn't too dreadful when recreating Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and I'll leave it to you as to any suggestion that Lohan can play a boozer.  Finally, having moments that echo other films (such as Butterfield 8, as we see above) play out in 'real life' might be clever to the production's mind, but it's actually distracting.

Liz & Dick has a rushed feel to it, and it never captures what was one of the most spectacular, passionate, shocking, brazen, and legendary love stories of the Twentieth Century.  It does sadly reduce them to silly figures, and even by made-for-television standards it does come off looking a bit cheap.  Grant Bowler comes off looking better because he went into this and gave a performance.  Lindsay Lohan might have come into it thinking that because both she and Taylor started young in show-business they had a common bond.  Only difference is that Taylor found depth in her life (her children, her AIDS work, her great performances in film), while Lohan hasn't. 

It's not good, and a disservice to an extraordinary passion story and two great actors and their legacy.     

4/10

Richard Burton: 1925-1984
Elizabeth Taylor: 1932-2011

Elementary: The Woman and Heroine Reviews

ELEMENTARY: THE WOMAN/HEROINE

A Two-Story Holmes...

After some thought, I have decided to review the Elementary season finale as one story with two separate episodes, The Woman and Heroine, rather than two separate episodes because they were listed in the credits as "Part 1" and "Part 2", therefore I think they have to be seen as two halves of a whole rather than two distinct episodes. 

If I may digress, it is reminiscent of the revived Doctor Who, which has two titles for two-part stories (for example, a World War II-based story in the 2005 season/series is called The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) even if it is one story (hence my naming of it as The Empty Child Parts 1 & 2).  I don't know if I'll have an overarching title for the two-part season finale...yet.   I'm toying with Adler & Moriarty for a title, but haven't decided to make it official. 

In any case, Elementary can't be accused of skimping on either the emotional aspects of Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu's Joan Watson or in the shocking twists department.  Now, let's cover the story and dive in.

The Woman: Having been recently been reunited with Irene Adler (Natalie Dormer), Sherlock Holmes is left reeling.  Irene appears in shock, unaware of how she got to New York or whom she claims has been holding her hostage.  Flashbacks to London dominate The Woman, where we see how the relationship between Holmes and Adler developed.  Adler, an art restorer, has been referred to Holmes as someone to consult on potential forgeries.  However, Holmes quickly finds that Adler has been doing some forging of her own: secretly sending her own works and keeping the originals.  Despite that, Holmes becomes fascinated with 'the woman', both sexually and intellectually.  As their relationship develops, he falls in love, so when M. appears to have struck at his heart, then this begins his descent into heroin addiction.

Back in New York, Holmes recuses himself from the case, deciding to devote himself to keeping Irene safe and helping her in her recovery.  Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) along with Captain Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Detective Bell (Jon Michael Hill) continue the investigation.  Watson's skills are rewarded when she deduces that the specialty paint Adler had must have been procured by someone else.  Gregson traces the paint to the Proctor Brothers.  At first parolee Duane (Lucas Caleb Rooney) is thought to be in league with the abductor, but instead it's the 'good' brother, Isaac (Erik Jensen) who is the conspirator.

Isaac has decided to go rogue and ignore Moriarty's standing order never to touch Sherlock Holmes, especially after Moriarty's men have now ordered Isaac killed.  With Isaac and Moriarty on the loose, especially after a 'message' has been put in Irene's bed at Holmes' brownstone, Sherlock decides that he and Irene now must run for her safety.  However, a birthmark on Adler no longer is there, setting off alarm bells.

Isaac, who had put the flower as a message and now decided to kill Holmes, is instead killed before he can complete his task.  Enter our killer, Moriarty, who is revealed to be....

Heroine:...Irene Adler herself, now speaking with a British accent instead of the American accent she had before.  In perhaps the most stunning turn in Canon-based mythology, Irene Adler and Moriarty are one and the same!  She had planned to kill Holmes a long time ago, him having interfered in one too many of her plots.  However, she was intrigued by him.  While he sees people as puzzles to be solved, she sees them as games to be played, and Sherlock Holmes got played big-time!

The shock of all this appears to be just far too much for Holmes, worrying everyone around him.  Watson is not immune from Adler's schemes (for the time being, I shall continue to refer to her as Irene Adler).  In fact, Adler abducts Watson and they have a bit of girl-talk if you will.  Adler asks 'my dear Watson' to let her win this game, but Watson reads her brilliantly: far from being confident, Irene Adler is genuinely afraid of Holmes.

The massive scheme of Irene's involves the manipulation of the Macedonian dinar.  A solution has been found that will allow Macedonia to join the European Union with Greece's blessing (the much-beleaguered state blocking its neighbor because of the use of the name 'Macedonia'), but someone has been buying dinars when their almost-certain conversion to euros would render them useless.  However, the "New Macedonia" mediators of the agreement have been murdered by Christos Theophilus (Arnold Vosloo), a Greek shipping tycoon who donates to nationalist causes, who himself is soon murdered.

His inability to stop these crimes, coupled with Adler/Moriarty, appear to cause Sherlock Holmes to finally give in and relapse.  Adler can't resist seeing her nemesis vanquished, and secretly enters the hospital to gloat.  However, we get one last big twist: the whole OD thing was a ruse to smoke her out.  Doctor Joan Watson, aware of Irene's need to win, had correctly deduced that her thinking Holmes had fully collapsed would smoke her out. 

Now with Adler arrested, Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson can breathe easy.  Holmes, still with his beloved bees, finds a new breed has been created, and he names it after Watson.

The Woman/Heroine has several firsts.  It is the first time that I know of that Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes are seen in bed together on film.  While other non-Canonical stories have them romantically involved (with Adler even giving birth to a child...Wolfe something I think), I can't recall a time when Sherlock and Irene were ever allowed to have such an intimate relationship.  Even the Robert Downey, Jr./Rachel McAdams Sherlock Holmes film had them more as witty banter partners than actual sex partners, and while I have yet to see A Scandal in Belgravia (the Sherlock version of the Adler story), I don't know whether the lesbian dominatrix (Irene Adler) and the Great Detective (guess who) ever did the bump-and-grind.

It also has the most daring take on the Moriarty legend I've ever seen.  Until Heroine specifically, no other Sherlock Holmes-based adaptation had ever had his archrival be a woman.  Even more scandalous, that Irene Adler and Moriarty turned out to be one-and-the-same is almost tantamount to blasphemy.  Here one has two of the most iconic Canon characters outside Sherlock Holmes and John Watson blended into one.

This one decision of Elementary creator/showrunner Robert Doherty (who co-wrote the screenplays with Craig Sweeny)  will I figure divide Holmesians for...well, forever.  Some I imagine will see it as a disgrace: making two legendary figures into one (thus robbing us of future encounters with either Adler or Moriarty, titans from The Canon).  Others might see it as a major stroke of genius, showing that Holmes is fallible and giving us a truly stunning twist (and also with the benefit of removing said Twin Titans of The Canon from Elementary and lifting the burden of their expected appearances from future Elementary stories).

For myself, I can see the benefits and drawbacks of making Irene Adler and Moriarty the same person.  Both carry risks and rewards.  Ultimately, I do worry that we will lose Irene Adler forever, which would be a terrible shame given Natalie Dormer's brilliant and astonishing performance as "The Woman".

Somebody give Natalie Dormer the Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series Emmy now!

I have a confession to make: I have never seen Game of Thrones, so The Woman/Heroine is my introduction to the lovely Miss Dormer.  I have never been as impressed with a performance as I have been with hers as Irene Adler.  At the end of The Woman, when she started speaking, I was genuinely stunned to hear her speak with a British accent.  I was momentarily confused as to why she would be affecting that voice...until the beginning of Heroine, when I realized she was British and she had been using a fake American accent (which I thought was quite real, a credit to Dormer as an actress).

Dormer had more than just her accent to concentrate on.  She really had two characters to play in two succeeding episodes: the frightened, vulnerable, and broken Irene in The Woman, the cool, calculating, murderous Moriarty in Heroine.   She played both parts brilliantly, convincing me she was a victim in Part One, the villain in Part Two.  Her quivering Irene gave in to the malevolent Moriarty with the greatest of ease and I had no trouble accepting her as both.  It wasn't just Dormer's voice that changed, but her whole being.  As Moriarty, she was confident, almost arrogantly so.  As Adler, she appeared confused, vulnerable. 

It is an astonishing performance. though in fairness the whole 'leaving the message on the bed' business didn't please me all that much.  I thought it a little clichéd, but acceptable.

In other terms of performances, we see the best of both Miller and Liu.  In the case of the former, what appears as his ultimate collapse was played so well I figured Holmes had indeed relapsed.  Perhaps by now I should accept that it was a ruse but I was suckered in.  Miller also has this moment with Dormer where he tells her his emotional and physical collapse when he thought her dead.  It was one of his strongest bits of acting this season and he should be proud of his Sherlock Holmes, a man who is not just a brilliant detective but a deeply flawed and troubled man, particularly with narcotics (and who knows it too).

Lucy Liu has been a marvel as Joan Watson, Sober Companion now protégé to Sherlock Holmes.  Given the level of Dormer's acting it took great skill to be her equal, and Liu in her scene at the restaurant with her matched her completely, her own self-confidence being the only real weapon at Watson's disposal against Moriarty.  We can see that she hates what Adler has done to Holmes, and the subtext is always that Joan thinks of Sherlock not just as a former client or mentor, but as a friend, a vulnerable friend, and one she won't allow someone to work over.

She even has some moment of comedy when Holmes is going over the elaborate nature of the dinar/euro scheme.  "This is all very fascinating in an NPR kind of way," she says (NPR: National Public Radio), showing that she doesn't quite see how a name change can be so important.  Liu handled the light moments just as effectively as having to confront Adler on her own terms.

Vosloo, best known as the title character in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, is either too young to be a father to the kidnapped girl or just looks like he's too young (since he's 50 as of today, I go for the latter...50!).  Minus that, he gives a solid performance as Theophilos (which I think translates to lover of God, which is the same as F. Murray Abraham's character of Gottlieb from A Landmark Story...just a thought).  It isn't until later that we see this former criminal himself (with the nickname The Narwhal) is a pawn in Adler's game.

I still struggle with Adler being Moriarty.  I wonder why Adler couldn't have just been in cahoots with Moriarty, or been a master criminal on her own.  However, since Elementary had introduced Moriarty mid-season, it would have been unfair to have 'him' carry on to the next season (a bit like how Season One of The Killing didn't get around to solving the actual murder).  Also, perhaps having a man or a 'name' play Moriarty might have been too easy.  Perhaps in retrospect having Adler BE Moriarty was a sharp way to tie all the loose ends together. 

Still, I think this ain't gonna sit well with certain folk.

In the end The Woman/Heroine had some genuinely stunning twists and turns (although some flaws, like briefly reintroducing the Taggart Speakeasy Museum from A Landmark Story without fully bringing it to a complete close...again).  However, with some brilliant performances (read above note concerning Natalie Dormer) and a logic to all that was going on, The Woman/Heroine makes a fine close to a smashing debut season for Elementary.

So, if I whipped men and had sex with women,
THAT would be more rational...

9/10

Next Episode: Step Nine

A Season One Review    

Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. A Review (Review #539)

SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE

More Like 'The Quest For a Good Script'...

It is one of my Golden Rules of Filmmaking: A Movie That is Part III Usually is A Disaster or a Harbinger of a Greater Disaster. For the first part, see X-Men III: The Last Stand, Spider-Man III, and The Godfather Part III. For the second, see Batman & Robin and this film: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. I can't fault their good intentions, but good intentions don't lead to a good film. This for me is THE FILM that began one of my greatest pet peeves in movies: being lectured to. Even when I saw this as a child, I knew I was being lectured on something, and ever since then, I've hated films that I suspect are made more to promote a cause than to entertain on some level.

What went wrong? How could this film have been spawned by Superman: The Movie, which IS the Citizen Kane of comic book film adaptations?  Well, I might have another rule: when the star of the film comes up with the story, chances are we're in for a vanity project of some kind.  That might be unfair to Christopher Reeve, who didn't come up with the story of Superman IV as an ode to himself.  Rather, Reeve wanted to share the importance of his thoughts about nuclear disarmament.  He meant well, and his sincerity about how we need to stop making nuclear bombs is admirable.  However, in his own quest to use the Superman franchise to further his own ideology, he forgot to put it in the context of a good story.  Some things were out of his control, some things weren't. 

If I am honest, this is not a review of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.  It's an autopsy.

At a brisk 90 minutes, Superman IV is the shortest of the Christopher Reeve Superman films and the second-shortest in the entire franchise (running about a half-hour longer than Superman & The Mole-Men).  However, even in that hour and a half, Superman IV feels all that longer as we watch people just embarrass themselves in the cheap production, boring story, and tired retreads of previous films.

Clark Kent (Reeve) has found another Kryptonian crystal, all that remains of that now-lost world, in the barn of the Smallville farm he grew up in.   Later on, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) has escaped his hard-labor camp with the aid of his hereto-unknown nephew Lenny (Jon Cryer, in an obvious nod to the youth market...when you look to appeal to teens, you turn to Ducky).  Lex has decided to destroy Superman by creating his own super-powered villain, Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow).

Meanwhile, David Warfield (Sam Wanamaker), owner of sleazy tabloids, has bought The Daily Planet, much to the anger of editor Perry White (Jackie Cooper), photographer Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure) and ace reporter Lois Lane (Margot Kidder).  Warfield has put his daughter Lacy (Mariel Hemingway) in charge of the paper and to bring up circulation, but the only thing Lacy wants to bring up is Clark's...well, she is immediately attracted to Clark and does what she can to bring him into her world.

Hilarity is suppose to ensue.

However, Supe has other matters on his mind.  A little boy, Jeremy (Damian MacLawhorn) has the perfect solution to solve the failed nuclear disarmament talks: get Superman to get rid of all nuclear weapons.  Superman struggles a bit with this question, even jumping off the roof with Lois and revealing his identity (again) flying her around the world (again) and kissing her off to where she forgets it all (you guessed it...again).  With that, he goes to the United Nations and declares that effective immediately, he's going to rid the world of all nuclear weapons (and said world rejoices).  Lacy continues her own quest for piece...a piece of Clark Kent, and more hilarity ensues when Lacy and Lois try for a double date with Clark and Lois.



Sexual harassment?
Whatever gave you that idea?

Luthor, now with an eye for war-mongering/profiteering, puts a device in one of those nuclear weapons.  When Superman throws into the sun, it creates this new villain.  His power is to grow deadly fingernails that will make Superman mortal and weak.  Eventually they do confront each other and Nuclear Man manages to weaken the Man of Steel.  With him out of the way Luthor rearms the world.

However, that little crystal will save Superman's life. 

With his raison d'etre gone, what's a Nuclear Man to do?  Why, go on a date of course!  Spotting Lacy's picture on the Daily Planet front page, he goes to get her.  Superman, by now recovered, tries to stop him and manages to trick him into going into an elevator, and with no sun to power him, he is useless.  A battle on the Moon appears to settle this, but Nuclear Man won't stay down.  He rises and goes back to get Lacy, where he carries her off into outer space...

...dear God it hurts just giving the recap...

...but Superman comes to the rescue and finally gets Nuclear Man out of the way. 

One thing Superman can't do is solve the nuclear question.  He informs the world that he's tried but that it's not up to him.  It's up to us, and until the people of the world so want peace their governments will be forced to give it to them, he'll keep trying.  He captures a fleeing Lex and Lenny, taking the former to prison and the latter to Boys Town, Metropolis.     

No matter how you break it down Superman IV is a disaster.  In fairness to Reeves not everything wrong with Superman IV comes from his well-intentioned mind. 

A great deal of the blame falls to Golan-Globus, the producers a friend of mine sarcastically refers to as "the Citizen Kane of production companies".  Menahem Golan and Yoran Globus didn't just cut corners in production; they shredded the whole page.  Few films look so cheap on screen as does Superman IV.    The visual effects in particular were galling.  Superman had set such high standards for visual/special effects it's truly sad to see Superman IV make them so cheap if not downright stupid and embarrassing.  At certain points, one can see the strings pulling Nuclear Man, and every time Superman takes flight, it's painfully obvious he's in front of a screen. 

In his first flight to rescue Lois from an out-of-control subway, you can see Reeve's Superman superimposed onto filmed footage (and I think it was the same footage as when Lois and Clark were at the subway station).  What is suppose to be a romantic flight between Lois and Superman around the world looks equally cheap.

In fact, so much that is wrong in Superman IV comes from the fact that it just looks so cheap.  A particularly galling sequence is when Superman speaks to the United Nations.  That entire sequence is something that should be shown to film students in the class "Don't Let This Happen to You".  I'll get to what makes it wrong in a contextual form in a bit, but let's stay with the money aspect first.

Now, at the time of Superman IV I had yet to visit New York City, but was aware of what the General Assembly looked like.  Having since visited New York City twice, it makes the shameless lack of similarity all the more apparent.  The General Assembly in Superman IV looks like a large rented hall rather than a center of world leadership, and the fact that the set is so cheap and unconvincing is only the beginning.

Apart from the fact that the General Assembly looks nothing like the actual General Assembly, the film made one ghastly mistake after another.  A street directly in front of the entrance (which it doesn't have).  The same people dressed in 'native costume' both in the lobby and in the assembly (how they got into the hall faster than Superman no one knows).  "England" as a member state!  This one is the most appalling and lazy of the mistakes in just this one scene.  There is no way "England" can be a U.N. member.  The correct designation would be "United Kingdom", but given how inept Superman IV is, perhaps this mistake is the most forgivable...even if it is the most illogical.

One can tell just how little money was spent whenever one sees it.  The models used (like the Great Wall of China or what I figure is Mt. Vesuvius) were painfully amateurish (makes the Classic Doctor Who visual effects almost Lord of the Rings-like in comparison).  The 'American' Daily Planet newspaper's headline reads, "New Publisher for Your Favourite Newspaper" (emphasis mine).  Allowing Gene Hackman to keep his natural hair rather than the wigs the suppose-to-be-bald Lex Luthor should have. 

Now we can turn to the script, which Reeve can be blamed for.  Christopher Reeve was a good, solid liberal.  Nothing wrong with that.   He decided that Superman IV would be the perfect place to spread the word about the dangers of nuclear proliferation.  Again, he meant well, but it doesn't make sense (except in a liberal's mind) that the world would be cheering on someone coming in and unilaterally disarming the world.  The world leaders at the U.N. would more likely have gasped at the thought and might have raised objections to having someone, even Superman, electing to take warheads launched at tossing them into the sun.  IF Superman had opted to be an honest mediator in talks, THEN things might have been believed, but it all makes one suspicious that despite all good intentions Superman IV was being used as thinly-veiled propaganda for the nuclear freeze movement.   Whenever a fictional character starts taking sides on something, it runs the risk of being more of a lecture than of entertainment.

Even worse, I'm amazed that neither screenwriters Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner (from a story by Rosenthal, Konner, and Reeve) or director Sidney J. Furie failed to notice that the U.S. President and the Soviet Premier were giving virtually the exact same speech!  If you listen to both of them, you'll hear that it is basically a verbatim copy of what the other said (with the only real change in the end).  It was the laziest way to write a story (and that's not including howlers like when Superman attempts to stop Nuclear Man's rampage by shouting, "Stop!  Don't do it!  The People!"  All that was left for him was to ask, "Think of The CHILDREN!").

The lowest point in Superman IV has to come when Nuclear Man, obviously bored with nothing to do, decides to take "the woman".  He sweeps her into outer space where once Superman moves the Moon to block his energy, she is about to fall into space.  Even as a child, I thought that didn't make any sense.  Wouldn't she have, well, exploded when leaving the atmosphere?  There's no oxygen for her to breathe...how can she survive so well in outer space?  Even the film makes obvious this is patent nonsense: we begin Superman IV with a group of cosmonauts in space suits.  Are we seriously being asked to accept that Russians need spacesuits but American newspaper editors (hot as they are) don't? 

While Hackman didn't embarrass himself, maintaining the mixture of comic and dastardliness that made him such a good Luthor, almost everyone else couldn't be helped.  Hemingway actually didn't do too bad, though the evolution from ruthless corporate lackey with the hots for Clark Kent to a genuinely caring woman more interested in news than profits was rather quick (even for a short film like Superman IV).  Reeve's Superman was still strong even if he did now come off as preachy.  However, Cryer's Ducky...I mean, Lenny made Otis look like a MacArthur Genius Grant winner, with his vaguely Valley Girl speech and general uselessness.  Why Jon Cryer was chosen to be the 'young' character I'll never understand. 

Superman IV has an embarrassment of embarrassments.  In certain aspects, it was a sad retread of Superman and Superman II (the flight between Lois & Superman and the 'magical kiss', Luthor's threat to blow up a building to bring Superman to his lair) and even Superman III (the villain's efforts to enrich himself by manipulating the world, the excess of comedy with the 'double date' which ultimately went nowhere).  Given how Superman set the standard for ALL superhero films, not just Superman films, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is just more than bad...it's sad, sad to watch. 

Curiously enough, the last line in Superman IV was when The Man of Steel told Lex Luthor, "See you in twenty."  By a strange twist of fate, it would be almost twenty years (nineteen to be precise) before another Superman film came our way.   

I'll be honest: I don't think this is the best review for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace; that honor goes to Lana Lang herself.  In the documentary Look, Up in the Sky!, Superman III co-star Annette O'Toole said, "I didn't even see....WAS there a Superman IV?"     

Would that we all wish that were so...

DECISION: F

Next Superman Film: Superman Returns

Elementary: Risk Management Review

ELEMENTARY: RISK MANAGEMENT

Cracks in the Holmes Structure....

Normally, one leaves shocking twists for the end of a season/series, but Elementary gave up what is perhaps the most stunning turn in its penultimate episode.  In fact, Risk Management had a whole slew of twists to our characters, if not the actual story.  As the debut Elementary season gears up to close an impressive first year, I do wonder whether it is throwing a bit too much at us and the duo of Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Doctor Joan Watson (Lucy Liu). 

Picking up right where we left off in A Landmark Story (which was pretty good for basically being the prequel to Risk Management), the voice of Moriarty now makes a strange request.  In exchange for giving Holmes information about Irene Adler, Moriarty asks Holmes to investigate the murder of a seemingly insignificant figure. It is a Brooklyn mechanic named Wallace Rourke, and one wonders why anyone, let alone a master criminal like Moriarty would care. In any case, in exchange for information about Irene Adler, Moriarty insists Holmes investigate.

His investigation quickly leads him to believe that Rourke was not killed by some random mugger but that he was deliberately targeted.  A cell phone Watson finds among Rourke's things leads them to Sutter Risk Management and the owners, Daren Sutter (J.C. McKenzie) and his wife Kay (Francie Swift).  After a brief interview and a glance at Daren's book, Friend or Foe: Assessing the Risks of Everyday Life, Holmes discovers that Daren believed Rourke murdered Daren's sister twenty years ago. 

Even after Daren confesses to the murder, Moriarty is not satisfied.  He tells Holmes he still hasn't really solved the crime and thus he won't give the information.  Holmes digs deeper and finds that Daren contrary to what he's maintained all these years didn't actually see his sister's killer.  Instead, it was his now-wife who saw the man.  Now, why would Daren lie and say he had been the witness?  It was because Kay and Daren were having an affair at the time of the murder, and she couldn't reveal what she knew without revealing that she was cheating on her then-husband. 

With the Sutter's business and lives now in ruins, Moriarty sends a text message with an address to Holmes.  Watson, who by now has learned how her mentor operates, had Holmes' phone tracked and meets him at the house.  There, as they wander around, Sherlock Holmes makes the most astonishing discovery of his life...painting quietly is none other than Irene Adler, very much alive....

Risk Management has all the trappings of a standard Elementary episode: a crime, the 'right person' in prison, a twist, and then a discovery with some character development thrown in there.  As we barrel down to the season finale, we have to be given a lot of twists and turns to keep our attention.  Liz Friedman's screenplay (from a story by Friedman and Elementary creator Robert Doherty) did just that (the final revelation of "The Woman" is enough to give us a jolt). 

In terms of character development, it is Lucy Liu's Joan Watson that has become a personal favorite (and one that outshines the idiot Watson of Nigel Bruce and gives Jude Law a good run for his money...undecided on Martin Freeman).  She also has become her own woman, fully aware of the risks (no pun intended...at least from this point) that come with working alongside Holmes.  Captain Gregson (Aidan Quinn) tries in his own gentle way to dissuade her from keeping the company of this brilliant but self-centered individual.  When she dismisses his concerns by pointing out he too runs risks, he says, "I've been a cop for 30 years.  I carry a gun."  To which Watson snaps, "And a penis," suspecting sexism in his concern. 

This is one of the things I like about both Liu and Joan Watson: she faces the extra hurdle of being a woman in a man's world, with the suggestion of either weakness or romance (something that no other Watson save perhaps Freeman has faced or faces).  However, she has grown as a character, from someone smart but not as clever as Holmes to someone who can more than keep up.  She, however, has something Holmes rarely shows: a heart.  At the end of Risk Management, we see that Watson is able to stay ahead of Holmes, fully aware of what kind of person he is by being able to 'think' like him.  However, when she comes face-to-face with 'the woman', she also shows something that Holmes is unable to do: show genuine concern for someone who has had the greatest shock of his life. 

I personally thought Miller's performance at the end was brilliant, the mix of heartbreak and joy, agony and ecstasy as he sees the woman he loved and thought dead now brought to life.  In the rest of Risk Management he still has the same curt and dismissive manner he's maintained throughout the series.  When Watson says that once they learn the name of the person who contracted the Sutters to keep tabs on Rourke we'll have the killer, Holmes tells her he already has it.  "First name Made.  Second name Up," he says.

In terms of the crime, it isn't the greatest, but I'm willing to forgive it because I feel that it is a precursor to an introduction to one of the legendary creations of the Canon, who appeared in only ONE story (A Scandal in Bohemia) but who, as one of the few women to both outsmart and intrigue the Great Detective, has taken on a life of her own, with her own spin-off non-Canonical stories and continued involvement in Sherlock Holmes' life (in and out of the boudoir).  Outside of The Canon, Irene Adler has become "The Woman" to Holmesians as well: a figure of fascination, intrigue, and even romance.

One hopes Irene will lead us down fascinating roads...        

My conundrum is whether to count the two-part season finale as TWO episodes or one.  I'll decide after watching. 

Post Script: After watching, given that it was listed as Part 1 and Part 2, I've opted for one review of a two-part story that concludes Elementary's premiere season.  

Irene: Portrait of "The Woman"

7/10

Next Story: The Woman/Heroine

Elementary: A Landmark Story Review

ELEMENTARY: A LANDMARK STORY

Holmes Preservation...

Given that A Landmark Story is the first of interconnected Elementary stories that will revolve around Sherlock Holmes' (Jonny Lee Miller) search for Moriarty, the man responsible for his one true love Irene Adler's death, I wonder if I should judge this as the first part of either a trilogy or a quartet (since the season-finale is a two-part story).  However, let us now judge A Landmark Story on its own merits.   With some excellent performances and some nifty twists and turns, A Landmark Story is that (even if it gets a bit lost in itself).

Sebastian Moran (Vinnie Jones) is out of solitary confinement and back to his beloved Arsenal football match-watching when a news report catches his attention.  He summons Holmes to inform him that the victim, one Phillip Van Der Hoff (Byron Jennings) was an intended target for Moran by his employer, a certain Moriarty.  As such, Moran believes that Moriarty has hired another assassin to do his job.  He tells Holmes this because like the detective, our former Colonel wants revenge for being sold down the river.  With that, Holmes and Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) begin investigating what was ruled a heart attack.

Now, we already know that Van Der Hoff has been murdered via manipulating his pacemaker.  An impromptu autopsy shows this, and Holmes deduces that this case is tied to the Taggart Speakeasy Museum, which has successfully remained protected by the Landmark designation.  However, Holmes finds that Landmark Board members one by one have slowly voted to deny landmark protection for the Museum (Vote to Revoke), and now they are one vote short.  The man most interested in the property, Robert Baumann (Laurence Lau) now is also conveniently dead, an air conditioner accidentally landing on him.

No accident says Holmes.  Having the sense that Hillary Taggart (Helen Coxe) is the next victim, he and Watson stakes her out.  With Watson's help he finds that she's allergic to insect stings, and deduces that the killer will use a 'convenient' bee hive to sting her to death.  A stake-out finds the killer, and Holmes now has a connection to Moriarty. 

The killer is Daniel Gottlieb (F. Murray Abraham), who uses his skills to kill people and make it look like accidents or natural deaths.  We learn that Gottlieb had once been contracted by Moriarty to kill Holmes via an 'accidental' overdose but at the last minute Moriarty cancels the order (the only time Gottlieb ever got a cancellation).  Gottlieb however has never actually met Moriarty, but his coded phone does help lead Holmes to a John Douglas (Roger Aaron Brown).  He knows something about Moriarty but is shot down before talking.

Holmes now is going to try to break the code, and tries to get Moran to help.  Moran at first appears to refuse, but too late does Holmes realize he's been played.  The code Holmes showed him was really meant for Moran, saying that either Moran die or his sister.  A Landmark Story ends with Holmes receiving a phone call, from one Moriarty...

I think we should call A Landmark Story the first part of an overarching story that will wrap up what has been on the whole a very good opening season for Elementary.   I almost feel I can't fully judge the story, however, because I feel tempted to see A.) how it fits into the overall story arc, and B.) it as part of one large story rather than an individual episode.  However, since I've been looking at these as a series of stories I will have to judge it as such.

On the whole, I found A Landmark Story to be filled with excellent performances.  F. Murray Abraham merits serious Guest Star in a Drama Emmy consideration.  His Daniel Gottlieb was wonderful and brilliant: never given to outbursts or hysterics, he was almost courtly and highly clever.  His opening scene where he tortures Van Der Hoff is almost light in how Abraham performs it: a man who takes pleasure in both the madness and the method.  One hopes that even though he has been handed over to the police Gottlieb might make a return appearance given he has proven a worthy advisory for Holmes.

We also give credit to Vinnie Jones, someone who has never been considered an actor but more of a tough guy who found himself in acting.  One wouldn't go to him to portray Macbeth but here Jones had a mixture of menace and madness as Moran.  When we learn that the code was actually a message for Moran, we can recognize that he didn't give away the fact that he was basically ordered to commit suicide.  It is an excellent performance.

I'd also say that both Miller and Liu find great moments together.  The little hint of a smile when Watson has to do the autopsy betray that he basically manipulated her into it.  He wanted her to do the autopsy but wouldn't admit it.  Later, when Holmes confesses that he won't go all psycho on Gottlieb as he did with Moran because "the thing that is different is you," we see a little smile slip past Liu, betraying her own delight at getting praise from the difficult Holmes.

Liu also brings a more menacing turn when she collaborates with Holmes in trying to squeeze information out of Gottlieb.  She certainly is turning out to be a magnificent Watson.

We still have some quips, mostly from Miller's Holmes.  When commenting on Taggart's activities, he remarks "The rest of her time seems to be devoted to running laps at the pace of a third grader with a sprained ankle."  Later, when Holmes is cracking the code (which has shades of The Dancing Men) and Watson inadvertently gives him the clue he needs, he exclaims, "Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable knack for stimulating it."

Corrine Brinkerhoff's script does seem to forget about the actual caper that brought us here (unless Moriarty has been the one involved in the shady land grab).  I confess to being a bit lost in that, and in the fact that poor Jon Michael Hill's Detective Bell didn't even make an appearance (at least that I remember).  Also, we did go back slightly in having Watson have to keep up a bit with Holmes, and while it's not much one should watch for letting Miller and Liu slip to being trainer and stooge.

Still, on the whole I enjoyed A Landmark Story, particularly Abraham's turn as the methodical killer.  The plot may have been slightly forgotten, but hearing Moriarty's voice is quite chilling and effective, opening up what we hope will be a successful season finale. 

According to this, our identities have been stolen by
a Freeman and a Cumber-something...

8/10

Next Story: Risk Management              

The Host (2013): A Review (Review #538)

THE HOST

Lost in the Muck of Meyer...

Longtime readers know that I have nothing but contempt for Stephanie Meyer and her Twilight book series (as I call it, the erotic musings of a frumpy hausfrau).  The Host is her first post-Twilight book, this time venturing from vampires and werewolves to aliens.  I predict that The Host will be one of those movies one will watch late at night and laugh at, wondering how reasonably intelligent people could not see just how much of a disaster it actually was. 

Earth has been conquered by 'the Souls', aliens who have brought peace and love and understanding to our much-beleaguered planet.  The Souls have healed the Earth: made it clean, free from war and disease.  One would think humans would be grateful, and perhaps we would be if it weren't for that 'aliens taking over our bodies' bit.  While most of humanity has been invaded by these body snatchers (have to admire Meyer's unique ideas), there is a group of humans that won't submit to this programming.  These humans form some kind of resistance against Occupation, but they are a small group.

One of them is Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), who in the start of The Host throws herself out a window rather than have these soft-spoken white-clad figures take her body and mind (is it me, or can a case be made that the Souls, with their penchant for white ensembles and generally pleasant demeanor, be seen as a particular religious group?).  As it stands, while Melanie manages to survive she is implanted with a Soul who calls itself 'Wanderer'.  The Seeker (Diana Kruger), a Soul, wants to find the secret lair of these humans.  The Wanderer at first wants to tap into her 'host's' mind, but Melanie resists (usually by speaking sarcastically to the Wanderer's head). 

Eventually the struggle between Melanie and the Wanderer is too much, with the Wanderer literally pushed out the window (again) by Melanie.  Melanie/Wanderer goes to find her family, and eventually she finds them: her Uncle Jed (William Hurt), her brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury) and her love interest Jared (Max Irons).

A side note: Jed, Jamie, Jared...what is it with writers and having three characters whose first name all start with the same first letter?

Well, Jared automatically distrusts her, Jamie is hopeful to have his sister back, and Jed protects her even if she is an alien and her aunt Magnolia (Francis Fisher) is openly hostile.  Only Ian (Jake Abel), someone who also started out suspicious of Wanderer (now nicknamed Wanda) starts to carry a torch for Wanda (over Melanie's loud...and I do mean LOUD...objections).  Well, the Seeker keeps hunting for Wanda and the Humans, while Wanda discovers a way to remove the Souls from humans without harming either. 

Eventually, Wanda asks the cave's physician (oh, yes,  the Humans have taken refuge in a series of caves, part of a dormant volcano system where one area is large enough for a wheat field) to remove her Soul.  The Seeker is captured and the Soul removed with her human restored.  As for Wanda, she is placed to her surprise in a human who was basically dead...therefore Wanda and Ian can be together and Jared and Melanie can be together.

The Host has so many things wrong with it that it soon becomes too hard to catalogue them all.  Let's start off with director Andrew Niccol's adaptation of the novel.  I can't imagine that someone as bad as Stephanie Meyer could come up with such hilarious lines as Wanda telling Jared, "No.  Kiss me like you want to get slapped."  (For clarification, Melanie will react by gibbering in Wanda's head if the former gets angry...and evidently the latter making out with anyone really sets her off).  That just had me laughing (even if it was in context), while other moments were equally amusing. 

The Host has an ongoing conversation between Wanda and Melanie as the latter attempts to keep some control over her body and emotions while basically powerless to do anything (except, of course, whenever the plot needs her to given that on one or two occasions Melanie is able to overtake Wanda and speak for herself).   Perhaps in the book this device works because we as the reader can 'see' into Wanda to 'hear' Melanie.  However, the film version always makes Melanie sound less like a brave and fiery spirit and more a whiny teenager.  "Don't you DARE smile at him!" Melanie 'says' when Wanda starts making goo-goo sparkly eyes at Ian.  It is even funnier when you hear it than when you read it.

This is a big problem with The Host.  Because we first meet Melanie as she plunges to her non-death we never got a sense of what kind of person she is/was, and the flashbacks didn't help establish anything else except that she fell for Jake, loves Jamie, and was like all Meyer females, aggressive sexually (for further example, see Swann, Bella).  Therefore, when we hear her voice, she comes across as some dippy teen who just wants to be with Jake, not fight against this Invasion.

As a side note, the actual invaders are almost comical.  They wear white clothes and have an affinity for silver vehicles.  I kept wondering why they were so terrible when they were so terribly nice, almost Mormon-esque in their behavior.  There was a vague sense that they wanted to take over humanity, but these few scenes of them (or particularly the Seeker) being aggressive even made it clear that they generally were not for killing.  If the humans wanted to get things, I figured given the world they lived in, it would have been easier to go into "Store" (that is how the location was noted), wear a white suit (with sunglasses) and just take what they needed (in this world, there was no need for money since the aliens just took what they needed and left with smiles on their faces...almost Stepford-like).   The entire 'let's rob Store at night' thing seemed almost ridiculous.

However, not as ridiculous as what was suppose to be an exciting action scene that ends in two characters' deaths.  First, we never really got to know who the dead people were, so their loss was of little value.  Second, their behavior was just plain dumb.   In order to avoid detection in this highly regulated society, people in their shiny silver vehicles usually stay within a certain speed limit.  What do our two brilliant humans do?  One would have thought they had done this before, so their actions aren't just bizarre, they are idiotic.

I felt bad for the actors, certainly for Ronan who is clearly much better than the material.  The Melanie voice (in particular whenever she says something smart to Wanda) makes her look not struggling with two beings in one body but as borderline crazy.  Melanie as I've stated as sarcastic, almost whiny, but in fairness to Ronan she did the best that anyone could with the material she was given.  As for everyone else en masse, they were directed to play everything with such somberness, such seriousness, that the tone makes everything look comic.  Somehow, the stern tone The Host takes has the opposite effect: it just highlights all its flaws to where people end up either laughing or leaving. 

I can't truly judge how good actors either Irons or Abel are because they were one-note, more looking pretty (which they are) than expressing emotions.  Boyd Holbrooke's Kyle (the main antagonist to Wanda) was similarly one-note, scowling throughout the film as he menaces her.  It's a sign of how bad the performances were that when Jared stops Kyle and someone else from killing Wanda early in her captivity, he seemed to be extremely still in what was suppose to be raging anger.  I half-wondered whether it was because they couldn't shout inside the caves, but there has hardly a hint of emotion from either pro or antagonist, as if both sides were basically behaving half-dead.

One thing I didn't care for was that Melanie could control Wanda's actions whenever the plot needed to, such as whenever someone else's life was in danger or in quickly recognizing and speaking over Wanda when she first meets Uncle Jed.  For me, that is kind of cheating.

Another matter is over whenever we hear Melanie's voice speaking over/to Wanda.  I figure again that this might work in the novel, where we don't have visuals save in our minds.  However, whenever we do hear Melanie, the effect is inadvertently hilarious.  I do wonder if it would have all worked better if Melanie's voice were sparingly or never used.  It certainly would have been less funny, but given that since everyone is trying so hard to play The Host as if it were a deep and intelligent story but instead making everything look and sound even sillier, who knows.

Finally, Antonio Pinto's score only added the coda to the laughter quotient of The Host (pun intended).  Trying to be vaguely New Age, the schmaltz factor was amped up to where it makes everything funnier because again it is trying so hard (like everything else in this fiasco) to be so serious.

The best way to describe The Host would be to call it a variation of The Change-Up: Drama Edition. It's a disaster of a film that will be seen as an unintended comedy, something akin to Plan 9 From Outer Space or Manos: The Hands of Fate for the Twilight Generation. 

In the name of all that is holy,
STOP WRITING!!

DECISION: F