Star Rating:

Home (2015)

Director: Tim Johnson

Actors: Jennifer Lopez, Jim Parsons

Release Date: Friday 20th March 2015

Genre(s): Animation

Running time: 94 minutes

As an actor, it's certain that Jim Parsons hopes to one day show everyone he’s more than just Sheldon Cooper. For now, he's happy to riff on the quirky traits that pretty much carries The Big Bang Theory. Think Fun Sheldon Wants A Friend.

Parsons voices Oh and, much like Sheldon, doesn’t quite understand social mores and is incapable of appreciating sarcasm. Oh is a Boov, an alien species whose one outstanding feature is their ability to run away, which they're called upon to do again as the evil space race The Gorg discovers their latest hiding place. Escaping to Earth, moving all humans to Australia, the Boov move in and do what they do: peacefully go about their day and ignore Oh. However, when Oh inadvertently sends a party invite to the entire universe, alerting The Gorg to their presence, Boov leader Captain Smek (Martin) call for his arrest. Fleeing the baying mob, Oh is joined by twelve-year-old Tip (Rihanna), the one human who evaded the roundup, who needs Oh to help her find her mother (Lopez).

Kids won't care about Home’s more ropey moments. They won't care about the predictable ending or the sleep-inducing drone of Rihanna's voice. They won't care that this is just a vehicle to help re-launch her movie career after the disastrous Battleship and won't give a second thought to the probable negotiations that went on behind the scenes about how many Rihanna/Lopez auto-tuned songs would be used.

Kids won't care a jot about this or any cynicism. They'll just see the nice colours, the cute alien with the funny face who speaks funny, and they'll probably like the terrible music. Rihanna's flat vocal delivery here contrasts with Parsons' energetic and fun performance. He manages to keep Oh's grammatically troubled speech ("I needs to be wanting a friends") this side of annoying. Meanwhile, Martin's Smeck, a Robin Williams' Lovelace/Sacha Baron Cohen's Julien mashup entertains.

While Antz and Over The Hedge director Tim Johnson misses a trick by not showing more of the goofy and imaginative Boov technology, this adaptation of Adam Rex's book (the screenplay is from Get Smart writing team Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember) comes up with quite a touching finale.