Film review: Home - animated alien adventures
Story of "friendly" invasion of earth rescued from being generic by Jim Parsons' otherworldly voicing of lead character Oh.
Voiced by: Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Jim Parsons (English version)
Director: Tim Johnson
Category: I (English and Cantonese versions)
Hitting screens ahead of Minions and Pixar's Inside Out, is DreamWorks Animation's Home. The story begins with a "friendly" alien invasion of earth by a species of colour-shifting creatures known as the Boov, who want to use the planet as a hideout from their foes, the Gorg. Our hero is Oh, an inquisitive Boov prone to mistakes, who becomes a fugitive after a party e-vite he sends out looks set to alert the Gorg to their whereabouts.
"The Boov are not unique," Oh says, and, at first glance, the same could be said for the film. Initially, Home looks as generic as its characters. It feels like a film assembled by Hollywood chemistry, with executives mixing elements in search of box-office alchemy. You can almost imagine the conversation: "Let's make a movie about an alien. What else? What about cats? They're always a hit on YouTube. Let's put one in. What else do kids like? Rihanna! Let's get her on board, too ..."
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Yet if Home seemingly plays it safe, it has an ace up its animated sleeve. Casting Jim Parsons to voice Oh is a stroke of genius. Best known for his role as the nerdy physicist Sheldon Cooper in hit TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory, Parsons has yet to be overexposed in movies, but here channels some of Sheldon's otherworldly nature into Oh. "Can I come into the out now?" he says, when he's locked in a freezer, in his typically bizarre syntax.