We are all individuals. Well. I’m not, obviously. But you get the idea.
The only 2015 release from DreamWorks Animation is a curious anomaly. Adapted from Adam Rex's novel The True Meaning of Smekday, Home has an original, convincingly satirical concept at its heart, but much of the execution feels overly familiar. The cute invading aliens will remind many of less amusing Minions. The central relationship is very to similar to that between Elliot and ET. The trick, perhaps, is to shut out those memories and pretend you recognise nothing in near-vision.
Home imagines an invasion by an unyielding drone-like alien species named the Boov. Fleeing the more superficially fearsome Gorg, these beasts clear humans from the cities and despatch them (those who aren't already Australian, anyway) to Australia.
The sole individualist in the alien race, an amiable boob named Oh, accidentally sends our planet’s coordinates to the Gorg and is forced into exile. He bumps into Tip, a spirited teenager, and they set out on a road trip across and above the deserted planet.
Addicted to communication devices, unwilling to connect on a physical level, the Boov are, of course, us at our most anti-social and wired in. (Home is among those rare family films that integrates the internet seamlessly into the action.) Impressively sharp points are made about our increasing emotional coolness as Oh and Tip squabble their way to a connection.
Superb voicework from Jim Parsons (weird in his precision) and Rihanna (soothingly warm throughout) help flesh out the relationship. What a shame, then, that the animation is so workaday and the final denouement so damply familiar.
Home is not to be begrudged the large audience that, released in the penumbra of the Easter break, it will almost certainly kick up. One just wishes that a few more risks had been taken with such promising material.
