Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Movie Review: ‘Home’

DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation

★★★☆☆

If the song “S&M” told us that Rihanna was into painful experiences, Dreamwork’ new film “Home” is the next logical step in her career. The animated movie is voiced by an accomplished set of Hollywood favorites, from the popular Rihanna to the established Jim Parsons from “The Big Bang Theory” to the legendary Steve Martin. But despite this all-star cast, the film falls flat on its extraterrestrial face.

Now, some may point out that a 19-year-old college student may not be the primary demographic for a children’s animated film, which is a very valid point. But I would be quick to point out that Pixar, Dreamworks’ main competitor in the animated film industry, has continued to make films that can be enjoyed by both young and old, such as “Finding Nemo” and “Up;” thus, “Home” fails in several regards.

The film follows a species of cowardly aliens that overrun earth while hiding from a larger, more frightening genus of aliens. In the process, the aliens benevolently relocate the humans to Australia and begin infesting cities around the globe. One of these cowardly aliens is the perennial outsider, Oh, voiced by Jim Parsons. Oh accidentally clicks “send all” on an email which sends Earth’s address to the entire galaxy, thus alerting the more frightening alien species of their location. As Oh hides, he runs into Tip, voiced by Rihanna, who has been separated from her mother in the relocation process. Tip and Oh become an unlikely pair of friends and set out on two adventures: one to save the planet, and one to reunite Tip with her mom. The film has two overarching storylines, one dramatic and one emotional.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this structure, but it produces a somewhat hollow film. When compared to some of Pixar’s greatest hits, one realizes that what “Home” needed to do was marry the two plot lines seamlessly. In “Up,” Carl goes to Paradise Falls to fulfill a lifelong promise to his wife and in doing so he risks his own life. In “Finding Nemo,” Nemo’s dad sets out to recover his son, and the dramatic action lends to the emotional story of a lost child. “Home” cannot gain emotional resonance because the two goals remain entirely disconnected until the very end of the film. End result: an emotionally apathetic film that often relies on gimmicky slapstick to get the audience to invest.

Beyond the structural inadequacies of the film, there are more simple flaws that make it near unbearable. Primarily, dialogue. In crafting a fake syntactic structure for our alien species, the film manages to employ a sort of “English as a second language” grammatical ability with perfect cadence and wide vocabulary. This creates a film that is heavily narrated by aliens who produce the most irritating and deliberately incomprehensible version of the English language.

Another tremendous flaw in the film was its shameless and discordant plugging of a Rihanna-heavy soundtrack. Take the beautiful soundtrack of Pixar’s “Up,” the winner of a Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media in 2010. It relied on a classical symphony to produce a sweeping and emotional musical mise-en-scene that complimented the action on screen. In “Home,” a sort of musical advertisement for Rihanna’s greatest hits continually disrupts a beautiful orchestral score. And while Rihanna’s music seemed very well put together, in a film focused on the needs of small children and young aliens, it is sorely out of place.

The one redeeming aspect of this film, beyond the versatile voice-work of the acting cast, was its animation quality. To most of the audience born within the past decade, the quality of the renderings probably went unnoticed. However, when you can see that every single strand of a character’s hair or an ocean that beautifully mattes an obsidian sky into depths of the Atlantic, it can be breathtaking.

Overall, if you have children between the ages of two and 10 attending the film, he or she will enjoy it thoroughly. The bright colors and physical comedy will sustain them through the 90-minute exercise in 3D rendering prowess. However, its gimmicky structure lacks emotional resonance, so if you and a friend are looking to rekindle childhood wonder, this is not the film for you.

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