Monday 13 April 2015

Film Review: Home



Home is the latest animated offering from Dreamworks Animation, the studio that brought us fantastic family films such as How To Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda and Shrek

Featuring the voices of Jim Parsons, Rihanna, Steve Martin and Jennifer Lopez, Home is about a loveable alien named Oh (Parsons) who singlehandedly dooms the Earth to destruction at the hands of an evil alien race, the Gorgs.


The Boov, a cowardly species of squishy purple aliens led by Captain Smek (Steve Martin), arrive on Earth and decide that they like it enough to stay. You see, the Boov are forever on the run from the Gorg, a dastardly rival alien species that pursue them from planet to planet and in Earth, they've found somewhere they can hide for good.

Amongst the Boov is the loveable but dim-witted Oh (Jim Parsons). A social outcast, Oh has never fitted in with his fellow Boov - and this is only worsened when Oh accidentally sends a message through space alerting the Gorg of the Boov's new location. Whilst on the run, Oh meets Tip (Rihanna), a young human girl who is looking for her mum. Together, the two discover that not fitting in and being your own person might not be so bad after all.

The first thing you notice with Home is how colourful and vibrant the animation is - Dreamworks have really gone to town with the colour palette and the result is a rich and eye-catching feature that pops from the screen. On top of that, the animation itself is smooth, inventive and certain to delight kids.

However, I felt that Home lacked the sincerity that some of Dreamworks' past work. Instead, it bounces around like a sugar-crazed eight-year-old who just charged head-first through a Sizzler dessert bar. And, like said preteen, it all comes crashing down when the buzz wears off.

It's never a good sign when a 94-minute animated feature feels longer than it is. It's here that Home suffers. The plot has a clear direction to begin with but when that gets resolved and another objective takes its place you start to wonder how much longer there is left.

The voice acting is decent, but nothing spectacular. Parsons essentially plays a sillier and stupider version of Sheldon whilst Rihanna just reads the lines like she's scanning a McDonald's menu board. Steve Martin adds some energy as Captain Smek though.

I wasn't a big fan of the soundtrack either - composed and recorded as a full 'concept album' by Rihanna, the soundtrack is a mixture of bland pop and R'n'B tracks that are ill-fitting with the tone of the film.

The message of sticking up for yourself, looking after your family and not being afraid to stand out is a positive one for kids, albeit a generic one. The film, like many animated films, doesn't have much to say outside of the norm. It reminded me a lot of 2013's The Croods or Turbo rather than the cream of the crop. Home is nowhere near Dreamworks' zenith of Dragons and Kung Fu Panda - much like the bland title, Home is a forgettable film that kids will probably fail to latch onto after the credits have rolled.

The Verdict: 5/10 


Home is the perfect film to plop your little ones in front of for 90 minutes on a rainy Sunday afternoon - simple, shiny and inoffensive. For everyone over the age of 11, it's merely a mediocre and passable folly that doesn't register at either end of the emotional scale. 

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, this is pretty much what I, sadly, expected. I'll eventually see this, I'm sure, thanks to having three kids myself, but I'm not expecting much. Great review.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks mate! :) Hope the kids like it, even if you may not ;)

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