| Home is DreamWorks Animation's children adventure film about finding where home really is, but it's a rather misguided attempt that says a lot less about the title concept than they should. Home is where family is. That's it. The rest is filled with childish toilet humour, aliens who might look cool (but really aren't endearing at all), one cat and one human girl who is our only connection to emotion and maturity. | | 2015
Directed by: Tim Johnson
Screenplay by: Tom J. Estle, Matt Ember
Based on the book by Adam Rex
Starring: Jim Parsons, Rihanna
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Oh (voiced by Jim Parsons) and a cat named Pig enjoy their global
road trip. Home © 2015 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved. |
The lead character is Oh (voiced by Jim Parsons) a member of the bloopy, purple alien race called Boovs. The Boovs are on the run from an evil predator and so they find a new home on planet Earth but this involves forcibly removing all humans and relocating them to other continents. But a human girl Gratuity Tucci nicknamed Tip (voiced by Rihanna) and her cat named Pig are left behind. She wants to find her mother who was taken with the other humans. Oh is socially maladjusted, emotionally clueless with an off-putting personality which makes him an unwanted outsider. A mistake separates him from the other Boovs and he pairs himself up with Tip to help her find her mother.
Lazy voice actor casting is worse than live action type-casting since appearance is not a factor and the only constraint is imagination. Hiring Jim Parsons to play an actual alien version of Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory” is possibly the laziest voice acting choice I've ever witnessed and the film doesn't ever want you to forget that Oh is Sheldon even if he doesn't look like Sheldon. He speaks very idiosyncratically and has identical personality traits just with a more optimistic demeanor to make him kid friendly. And if possible, he's more annoying here than on the television screen. Rihanna does a much better job with Tip, who's likable and human. Although also having her provide the majority of the soundtrack can be Rihanna overload.
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Bubble-riding Boovian traffic cop Kyle (Matt Jones) corners his prey,
Oh (Jim Parsons) and Tip (Rihanna). Photo credit: DreamWorks Animation.
Home © 2015 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved. |
The story is cute and very straight forward and should be able to keep the kids in their seats as the Boovs change colour with their emotion, make odd judgements about human activities and have technologically advanced bubble portals to move them around. Oh also “fixes” Tip's car so it flies and is powered by slushies.
Home is hampered by the lack of comedy. There are only a handful of jokes (that are easily recognizable as jokes) but are so childish in nature that not even the young children in the theater audience laughed out loud, let alone anything for the adults in attendance. |
