Dreamworks Animation has had an impressive run of films lately, including Mr. Peabody & Sherman and How to Train Your Dragon 2. Unfortunately, their newest isn’t nearly as ingratiating. Home is filled with noble themes and ideas. However, they’re packaged in a well-produced but otherwise flat and unexciting story. When the biggest audience “ooohs” and “aaahs” come from the three dimensional image asking you to recycle your glasses after the show than anything in the movie itself, it’s not exactly a great sign.
The Boovs are an alien race on the run from their mortal enemy, who has destroyed entire planets to reach them. They arrive on Earth and quickly move all of the human residents to Australia. However, their plan hits a serious kink when Oh (Jim Parsons) accidentally sends a party evite to the world-destroying alien.
Fearful of punishment from Captain Smek (Steve Martin), Oh (who has done something like this 60 odd times in the past) runs away. He joins Tip (Rihanna) a human girl who has evaded relocation and is desperate to find her mother (Jennifer Lopez). In the meantime, the Boovs go into panic mode, attempting to crack Oh’s email password and stop the message before it arrives at its destination.
Most of the humor revolves around sight-gags, but few hit the mark. The Boov are mystified by many human conventions and decide to rid the world of what they don’t need. This results in shots of toilet bowls floating the sky, or Captain Smek wearing a barbecue on his head as a crown. Occasionally, it’s cute, but most of the time it doesn’t result in much of a reaction at all.
This is going to come across as nit-picky, but when the story isn’t engaging and the brain wanders, it has time to question the proceedings. Early on, the lavatory is shown to be useless to the Boov, but later Oh goes into great detail about their bathroom habits – and even attempts to use a restroom stall. The dialogue about doing a “number three” is amusing, but the movie features several strange contradictions like this one.
The interaction between Oh and the sullen Tip garner a few chuckles here and there as she attempts to introduce him to important human customs. But not a lot actually happens on the road trip itself. And for all of its pleas of cultural understanding, the Boov aren’t depicted as bringing anything useful to Earth (beyond making cars fly). It would have been wiser to have the aliens eventually introduce interesting and helpful traditions to aid humanity and further the theme, rather than have them as cute but idiotic creatures that exist to simply be tolerated.
It also can be frustrating to watch at times. The major problem befalling Oh can be easily solved and it becomes annoying to watch the characters go through so much trouble for no discernable reason at all. This may be part of the message, but it still becomes grating to witness. For comparison’s sake, the TV show Gilligan’s Island holds a similar parallel. As a small child, watching the title character ruin everything week after week is hilarious. As an adult, you just want someone to throttle the guy for his incompetence.
Again, the message about staying true to friends and family is good, but the story and the execution of the film’s jokes leave plenty to be desired. The youngest audience members may enjoy the bright and pretty colors, but everyone else will end up either drifting off and/or becoming mildly annoyed by the proceedings.