No matter how much I am into a movie, I always have to go to the john at some point. This is the first movie in ages that I didn't have to. Whether that makes it good or not, I don't know, but at least you get an idea of how engrossing it was. I never go see monster flicks, and went to this one just because it's Korean, as I like Korean movies. Having read all the positive comments, I have to agree with a lot of them, and I learned something about monster movies in the process. However, I could never get into the "comedy" elements of the movie. I knew, OK, this is supposed to be funny, but in the context of the movie, I couldn't even break a smile. It's not the kind of movie where fart jokes work. People have commented about the "ordinary" family in this movie, but they are not an ordinary one, but an extremely dysfunctional one (at least in society's eyes) -- a la "Independence Day" -- which is what makes it interesting. Like most monster movies there are plot holes everywhere, which you're not supposed to think about; and the villain -- the US military and their Korean buddies -- is way too broad and obvious (not to mention that the actors are awful). A tiny detail, but I like how at the beginning of the movie in the riverside park there are not just Koreans, but foreigners mingling in (and not just blue-eyed blonde ones). It adds a touch of the everyday "reality" that is supposed to be the backdrop of the movie.
Review of The Host
