The Host’s aliens are amorphous white globs sprouting tentacles like one of those globes with the light that licks your fingers. Their world is slick and sterile, a “perfected” version of the world as we know it today. The human race has been inhabited – literally – by these spindly beings: pacifist, kind, and overflowing nice intentions; excepting, of course, the requirement that native species die in order that they live, using their bodies as a vessel. So far, so creepy.

Uninhabited humans are exiled, on the run from the alien race and fighting to keep their autonomy. After being caught, our typically “feisty” heroine Melanie’s (Saoirse Ronan) body is implanted with a host named Wanderer. In a rare case, she is able to fight against and manipulate the new form that has invaded her body – all of which is acted out through a series of echoey, clumsy, and embarrassingly poorly-written voiceovers. As the aliens, led by Seeker (Diane Kruger), attempt to raid her memories and find the whereabouts of the human resistance, Melanie somehow co-opts her host into an escape plan, before being systematically stripped of her personality in order that we might enjoy the simperings of her host.

Saoirse Ronan, looking serene and perfected in Host-buffed skin, does her best with a bad script. The story is a wandering, aimless mess, its sprawling chase elements over-complicated by the worst love triangle in recent years. Too many hot boys really spoil the broth: almost threesome kissing scenes, even moreso. Melanie receives numerous unnecessary kisses and slaps in the face, keeping the run-time ticking upwards and ratio of scenes with plot development ticking downwards. Meanwhile, overblown dramatic losses and repetitive poetic love-heals-all speeches work together with a complete lack of pacing to make this a resistance and a folly that seems to last an eternity.

Much like these host figures, the film is a shapeless mass of good looks and empty meanings. The result is stupid, ridiculous, and – worst of all – boring.