Starring Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger, and William Hurt. Rated 14. Now playing

“Almost every human has been successfully occupied.” That’s a line from the movie The Host, based on Stephenie Meyer’s sci-fi romance novel, but we can also totally imagine Meyer saying that to someone like, say, her dog or her cat late at night. You know, considering that the Twilight series vacuumed up much of Earth’s young-adult brain matter and replaced it with gummy bears. And now The Host arrives to continue the job, and it’s a very peaceful feeling—as long as someone will wipe the puréed carrots off our chins.

In the film, aliens called “souls” have invaded our planet and our bodies. They erase our minds, turn our eyes a pretty electric blue, and Earth looks extra tidy. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), thus far evading the invasion of the personality snatchers, is grabbed and a soul named Wanderer moves into her head. Unfortunately, Mel stays alert and persuades Wanderer, or “Wanda”, to join a resistance movement comprised of dully earnest yet handsome vampires… I mean, dully earnest yet handsome humans.

Ronan was excellent in Atonement, Hanna, and other films. But no actor could withstand this: throughout, director-writer Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) makes her voice both sides of Melanie and Wanda’s conversations as they argue—while sharing a body—over various resistance dudes (resulting in the most soap-sudsy dialogue ever). “Kiss him!” “No!” “Kiss him now!” “No!”

Shut up, Mel! Shut up, Wanda!

Diane Kruger tries to be scary while hunting Mel/Wanderer/Wanda/Yawn, driving a silver Lotus in skyscraper booties. We’d be scared of Charlize Theron, but Kruger just looks unhappy, unsurprisingly. William Hurt, conversely, plays the jolly, bearded resistance leader like he’s a pretend farmer in a Monsanto commercial.

The Host is pretty much As the Invaded World Turns, plus an after-school nap. “This is so wrong,” Mel says. “You’re not even from the same planet.” That’s not the only probs, Mel.