Home may not be the greatest CGI movie from the guys at Dreamworks Animation, but that doesn’t stop it from having a good time and spinning more a few laughs along the way. It’s a good fun family cartoon movie and with cute characters, a crazy plot and cool effects it does well enough stacking up against previous hits like Shrek, How To Train Your Dragon, Antz and Kung Fu Panda.
Released in cinemas on the 27th March 2015, Home tells the story of an invasion of Earth by a well-meaning, but misguided runaway alien race called the Boov, which sets things up for another unconventional concept from Dreamworks. Persued by their mortal enemies, the Gorgs, they arrive on earth, peacefully move all humanity to close knit communities in the barren lands of Australia’s outback and take the rest of the planet as their new home, confusing American footballs as snacks and
However, they haven’t counted on the tenacity of a hideaway girl called Tip, who’s been left behind with her cat and separated from her mum, or the bungling efforts of free thinking Boov, Oh. Together they make a mad cap team and set out on a free wheeling adventure in a genius hover car powered by slushy to rescue Tip’s mum and prevent the arrival of the Gorgs on Earth following Oh’s slightly naive universal invite to his housewarming party.
It makes for a whole lot of surreal anarchy to get your head around, especially with all of the cool, and slightly bizarre, future tech that the Boov bring with them, including gravity control triggers, wall erasing bubbles and national landmark floatation devices – the Eiffel Tower flying above Paris looks particularly impressive. All of this makes for a lot of creative scope for the movie’s animators and the finished rendering is polished, full of impact and kind of unique in style.
Jim Parsons is pretty funny in the role of the rogue alien Oh and his straight laced, confused alien higher being mentality feels like a direct continuation of his role as Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory. He makes a good foil for Rihanna to play off as she takes to her first big starring role as Tip. She works really well as the determined lost girl trying to fix things as best she can and there are a lot of great scenes between her and Oh that will make you fall for them both enough to care how things go in their high risk plan.
The cast is also made up by Jeniffer Lopez, who puts in a dependable performance as Tip’s mum, although she doesn’t really feature all that much throughout the movie. However, Steve Martin (The Pleasure Of My Company) makes a good return to the big screen voicing the Boov high commander Captain Smek with typically brilliant comic timing and great line delivery.
As loathed as we are for saying it, the music isn’t too bad either, featuring a single from Rihanna called Towards The Sun and one from Jennifer Lopez called Feel The Light. They’re not our typical music of choice, but in the context of a cute animated move they work pretty well.
Overall, there’s not as much action as The Croods, or as much magic as How To Train Your Dragon 2, but Home has got more than enough fun comic moments to make it an enjoyable movie to watch. While it’s not quite a classic in the making you probably won’t be able to leave the cinema without a smile after watching it.
Home review: 3.6/5
 movie review from the film section of Tuppence Magazine, including our thoughts on the cast, storyline and music for the Dreamworks Animations movie.){kind=link}