Throughout this
movie, I was involuntary half-expecting that the expression “Bazinga!” was
going to be uttered in this movie. Well, the word wasn’t expressed. But it still felt like that
this movie – for better and worse – is one big “Bazinga!” happening. It’s just quite hard separating Sheldon
Cooper from the character Oh. Actor Jim
Parsons really has a distinguishable voice, which has already been thoroughly
associated with his The Big Bang Theory
character. I like Sheldon Cooper, but I
believe Jim Parsons only appeals when he’s Sheldon Cooper, and he’s cringe-worthy as a voice actor. Oh
eventually grew on me as a character, but this aspect was a one of this movie’s
distractions.
I guess you can perceive
already where this review is going.
Anyway, Home is based on the better titled book
(in my opinion) The True Meaning of
Smekday. The movie tells the story
of a cowardly alien race called the Boov who are on the run from an alien race
called the Gorg. Believing that the Earth
is the best place for them to be safe from the Gorg, they relocated all humans
into Australia and took the rest of the world for themselves. The focus of the story is on Oh (Jim Parsons),
an enthusiastic and free-thinking Boov, who is being hunted by the other Boovs
for accidentally informing the Gorg where the Boov’s current location is. While on the run, he comes across a
human tweener named Gratuity “Tip” Tucci (Rihanna), and her
cat, Pig (ridiculous cat name). Forced
by circumstance, Oh and Tip begin a globe-spanning adventure together and eventually
learn that friendship between Human and Boov is possible.
Aside from the
colorful, vibrant animation, what I like most about Home is it having a couple of clever, adorable, and funny science
fiction ideas, especially with regards to the Boov race – their behavior,
their physiology, their technology, how they treat human-made objects, and the
way they “invaded” earth. The humor and
wackiness work at most parts, and the narrative has a sense of fun. However, there is also a significant amount
of stupidity in its plot that I find too distracting and which no amount of fun
and clever details can make up for properly.
It also has this
vague sense of artificiality. It felt
that particular elements were only added to the movie because they were proven to work
for test audiences. The story actually has
this heartfelt message, but, again, having an awareness for this “vague sense
of artificiality” kind of dilutes it. The
attempts to create drama and tension felt forced, and the adorability is obviously forced. The artificiality also required the story to have familiar plot points, which make the narrative generally predictable.
But since Home is a movie for kids, I could choose
to let off the stupidity and even the artificiality to an extent. However, what I hated about this movie was
how it has a lot of Rihanna in it.
Rihanna’s character, Tip, is pretty generic but is kind of okay. What extremely annoyed me was the feeling
that her music was being shoved down my throat.
Home is one of DreamWorks Animation’s weaker works. It doesn’t offer
anything that can match a Disney/Pixar level of quality – which DreamWorks proved to have been capable of doing in the past (e.g. How to Train Your Dragon 1 & 2, Megamind, Shrek, Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2, etc.) – and it has its share
of blandness and bothersome aspects. But it’s not at all a trainwreck. There is still an overall enjoyment to be had in this
movie. It’s just that Home is the kind of animated feature in
which it’s required for an adult viewer to find his inner child so that he can
go through this movie enjoying himself – he just have to consciously remind
himself that, though it fails to satisfy his adult sensibilities, Home totally works as a cute kids movie. Only once that is settled – and a degree of
tolerance for Rihanna songs is developed – that Home can be enjoyed.
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