Home (2015)

I will admit, my expectations before watching Dreamworks' 2015 animation Home were pretty low - my actual words to Mr. B were that if I couldn't find a film I'd actually enjoy, I might as well find one I could be enjoyably irritated by. Home had everything I needed to work myself up into a nice frothy lather: namely, 1) one of the two main characters was voiced by Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory and 2) for the purposes of this particular role, he appeared to be channeling Yoda. I was also fairly convinced that the visuals and the action would both be too loud, and I'd come out at the end with a totally righteous headache and everything to complain about.

A few quick explanations: Home is based on Adam Rex' children's novel The True Meaning of Smekday, and while I haven't read it, following the film I'd certainly like to. It deals with the invasion of the earth by the Boov, a cowardly but well-meaning group of aliens perpetually on the run from a hostile species. Our protagonists are Oh, a Boov outlaw (voiced by Jim Parsons), and Gratuity "Tip" Tucci (with Rihanna-yes-that-Rihanna doing voice duty), a 12-year-old girl accidentally left behind when the rest of the human race was forcibly relocated to Australia. The film follows their adventures and misadventures as Tip searches for her mother and Oh attempts to re-ingratiate himself with the rest of his race.

It's all very cute and cheerful, to be honest, and even after an afternoon of firefighting at work I was sort of won over. I kept the volume down reasonably low, and I actively enjoyed the animation itself - the human characters in particular were very nicely judged, not too cartoonish but still pitched safely away from the edge of the Uncanny Valley. Rihanna keeps the score sweetly bouncy, and there's a good-natured inventiveness about the whole thing that stopped my attention wandering too much. I shed a tear or two near the end, and didn't even find myself particularly resenting this.

So yes, I'd guess this would be a decent film to show your kids. As an adult, though, I couldn't help finding a few minor quibbles. Tip, for instance, was meant to be 12, but looked, sounded and frequently acted much older; personally, I was never really able to perceive her as a kid. Oh, and then there was the usual problem with modern animated films, in that there were about three separate climaxes taking up what felt like around an hour of the runtime - in this particular case they did all relate to relevant plot threads, but it all felt like a little too much and I could have done with half an hour less of it. My gut instinct is that a little simplification would have resulted in a shorter, tidier piece, and given the existing plotlines a little more room to breathe.

Oh, and Jim Parsons? Annoying as anything. #justsayin