Home **
Dir: Tim
Johnson. Animation with the voices of: Jim Parsons, Rihanna, Steve Martin,
Jennifer Lopez, Matt Jones. U cert, 94 min
Disney’s Big Hero 6 may have
pipped DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon 2 at this year’s Oscars, yet the latter studio has arguably
displayed greater consistency of late, smart gagwriting buoying even their
holiday filler (Mr. Peabody & Sherman,
Penguins of Madagascar) above a
rising tide of 3D product. What, then, happened with new release Home? It has a fun-sounding premise (an
alien invasion of Earth), and a veteran director in Tim Johnson (Antz, Over the Hedge), and still makes for a most underwhelming matinee.
Perhaps everyone was saving themselves for the forthcoming Minions; savvier parents may consider doing likewise.
Its single best joke flies by early, with the revelation that Oh (voiced
by The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons), head coward of
chameleonic aliens the Boov, is so named for the disappointed reaction his
presence engenders. There’s a zappiness about the invasion itself, which
relocates humanity to massive ballpools in Australia: the kind of subjugation
any fan of sun and fun might abide. It’s Oh who spoils the party, CC-ing a
birthday evite to the entire galaxy, and thereby alerting the Boov’s mortal
enemies to their whereabouts; subsequently exiled, he encounters the one human
left behind – Tip (Rihanna), a young Barbadian seeking her mom.
Tip’s quest is template, and not invulnerable to sentiment; where the Penguins spin-off pursued big, stupid
bellylaughs, Home is clearly aiming
for U-rated cute. Yet it never gets its lines of approach right. The
characterisation’s slightly off, for one: with his cinnamon-bun ears and
wheedling voice, the shapeshifting Oh’s a cross between Lena Dunham and Jar Jar
Binks – an acquired taste, to say the least. And while Tip provides another
step forward for onscreen representation, bum-flashing popstrel Rihanna makes a curious choice as
innocent; she has, however, tossed several filler songs into those montages by
which Johnson strives to plug the copious narrative gaps.
The animators keep it busy and colourful without ever seducing the eye:
even a set-piece involving an inverted Eiffel Tower passes without generating a
truly memorable image. Mostly, Home
resembles that standardised fodder now routinely pitched at easily distracted
youngsters: all but indistinguishable from the already bargain-binned Planet 51 and Escape from Planet Earth, it shrivels when set against DreamWorks’
own Monsters vs. Aliens from 2009.
Animation has become a crowded field, and perhaps we shouldn’t always expect
something out of this world, but this underdeveloped offering barely lifts
itself off the drawing board. It’s very, very… oh.
Home is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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