Review: Home

Oh (voiced by Jim Parsons) is a member of an alien race known as Boov (though until you see it spelled out, you’ll be hearing ‘Boob’!), who in response to a violent alien threat from a species known as Gorg, have decided to flee their home and taking over Earth. Earthlings are relocated (where else?) in Australia, whilst the Boov inhabit the cities (Never mind that Australia has plenty of metropolitan areas. Never mind that Australia probably isn’t big enough to house so many people, either. Sigh). Oh isn’t very well-liked or respected amongst his kind on account of him being incredibly annoying and cloying in pursuit of friendship (something Boov aren’t normally interested in). And prone to cocking things up. Yeah, there’s that too, and when an invite to a ‘warming of house’ party Oh is hosting gets sent out too far and wide, it alerts the Gorg to the Boov’s whereabouts. Oh is hunted down by his own people, and he decides to seek refuge in an abandoned convenience store. It’s here that he meets young Tip, a street-wise girl left behind by her mother accidentally when the latter was relocated. Oh and Tip need each other, Oh needs to escape, Tip needs Oh to fix a car she plans on using to find her mother (despite being way too young to drive, I might add). They argue on whether to flee to the arctic or go find Tip’s mother, but they’ll need to stop the bickering and get along if they are to avoid detection.

 

I guess calling this a DreamWorks rip-off of “Lilo & Stitch” isn’t 100% accurate, but there’s enough similarities between the two that I feel the similarity should be mentioned (both films centre around an ethnic minority girl and her annoying ‘pet’ alien who is being tracked down). I hated “Lilo & Stitch”, and the only positive thing I really have to say about this 2015 Tim Johnson (co-director of the quite watchable animated films “Over the Hedge” and “Antz”) film is that it’s a slight improvement over that godawful Disney misfire (and probably over DreamWorks’ own previous bit of animated idiocy, “Turbo”). The characters in this film aren’t as horrible but annoying and a bit boring. I guess that’s at least an advantage over “Lilo & Stitch”…a slight one. Otherwise, this is really lazy, uninteresting alien fish-out-of-water stuff solely for a kids audience. How lazy? Well, there’s the redundancy in having Jim Parsons (who should never have been cast in this) playing someone who has difficulty understanding humans, and he uses his Sheldon Cooper voice. Honestly, Oh really is just a ‘nicer’ Sheldon Cooper. That does not, however make him a more tolerable character than Sheldon. As much as Oh is far more palatable than the wretched Stitch, he is still insufferable and annoying. Say what you will about Sheldon Cooper, but at least that guy makes me laugh in between wanting to choke him (I really like “Big Bang Theory”, even though the characters of Sheldon and Howard in particular make my skin crawl. Funny is funny, I guess).

 

Johnson, the animators, and screenwriters Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (the OK film version of “Get Smart”) barely even try here in creating an interesting alien race. Their manner of speaking involves speaking English but leaving out certain words (like the way Native Americans used to be portrayed in westerns!), not using any contractions, and they can change colour when lying. Wow, such originality and sophistication! ‘Warming of house party’? Was that meant to be remotely funny? To anyone? Because it’s not, nor is the alien fish-out-of-water nonsense of Oh eating urinal cakes and drinking piss. Physically, they look like blobby play-doh, something you could see in a Saturday morning cartoon. That’s not nearly good enough. Where’s “ALF” when you need him? Overall, the animation is really only a slight step up from “Lilo & Stitch”, too (despite the obvious fact that this is 100% computer animation), though at least the human character animation is vastly better than the aliens, and they have a bit more texture to them. Rihanna is certainly better company than Parsons, though I thought it was interesting that she was hiding her slight Barbadian lilt. However, casting the very recognisable J-Lo as her mother (and the character design of the mother indeed seems Latino) is a bit bizarre. Sure, skin complexion varies a lot in real-life, but in a movie, it causes unnecessary confusion I feel. More importantly, an almost unrecognisable Steve Martin gives a thoroughly boring vocal performance. He isn’t remotely funny or interesting, and is incredibly disappointing (By the way, there’s a little ‘Wild and crazy guy!’ in Parson’s interpretation of Oh, as well, presumably intentional).

 

One thing that really bugged me was the idea of ‘Tip’ being able to not only drive a car, but seemingly do it well. She’s what, 11 or 12? That shit didn’t fly with me when Bart Simpson drove a car during one of the worst-ever episodes of “The Simpsons” and I wasn’t buying it here, either, especially once Oh makes changes to the car so that it also flies now. It’s ridiculous, and just shows that this film is one of those movies that is clearly more of a ‘children’s’ film than a ‘family’ film. I can’t imagine anyone over the age of about 10 getting any enjoyment out of this one, and even some kids might find Oh genial, but irritating as fuck. I know I certainly did. Not all kids movies need to be accessible or enjoyable for adults, I suppose, but as an adult I feel I need give you my thoughts on the film as I personally see it, not through the eyes of its target audience. Go ask a kid, if you want their opinion, I find that kind of review rather pandering. All I can say is that I thought this was seriously clichéd to the point of near plagiarism. For the most part I found it quite tedious.

 

Rating: D+