Alien beings have come to Earth to take over our bodies and manipulate us as mortal puppets. As a result, most humans have now become “hosts” to these foreign life forms with only a few pockets of resistance sprinkled throughout desolate areas. This is not “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” but it might as well be. Instead, this is the outline for the new movie The Host which plays like a younger, dumber version of the aforementioned Body Snatchers.

Everything that is potentially interesting in The Host is immediately wiped out within the first few minutes of this insipid feature. There is plenty of blame to go around but the bulk of it should land at the feet of writer Stephenie Meyer, on whose novel this film is based. She is responsible for the Twilight series of young adult “literature” that taught a generation of young girls that vampires are real and boys sparkle when they really, really, like you. The Host is Meyer’s first attempt outside of the Twilight franchise and all of the tired, limp and heavy-handedness of that series is alive and well here too.

Young actress Saoirse Ronan dazzled with her performances in Hanna and Atonement but does the exact opposite here as Melanie Stryder, the heroine of this piece, who tries her best to make sense out of unnecessary complicated material. She is our guide through this alien abduction tale and it’s clear from the beginning that these aliens (or “souls” as they’re referred to in the film) have some serious holes in their plan for world domination.

But a movie like The Host isn’t interested in exploring the deeper meaning of why these “souls” have come to Earth and want us in the first place. It shamelessly knows its audience too well and instead decides to deviate from the path of bold and clever in order to make a hard left at the corner of stupid and wasted opportunity. If The Host were a smart movie it wouldn’t waste its time creating extraneous love triangles when the fate of Earth is at stake. But then again, if The Host were a smart movie it wouldn’t have been written by Stephenie Meyer in the first place. Angry readers, I look forward to your letters.

Accomplished actors William Hurt and Diane Kruger also try to bring some class to The Host but only end up cashing easy paychecks. It would have been nice if director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, In Time, Lord of War) had managed to conquer the Stephenie Meyer syndicate and actually made something worth watching. That was the same hope people had when Bill Condon (Kinsey, Gods and Monsters) was hired to direct the last two Twilight films but both experiments failed in similar fashion. The bar shouldn’t be set this low for entertainment. We deserve better than pedestrian writing and pandering love stories. I’m doing my part by warning you of this catastrophe. You do your part by avoiding it.

Grade: D

Rated: PG-13 (for some sensuality and violence)

The Host opens in theaters on March 29, 2013.