Amid news earlier this year of DreamWorks Animation having to cut about 500 employees due to low box office turnouts, the studio premiered its new animated feature “Home” on Friday in hopes of crawling out of its financial hole.
The film centers around the Boov, a fearful and flighty alien race being followed by their ominous enemies, the Gorgs. The Boov seek refuge on Earth and relocate all humans to Australia, but they miss one: a teenage girl named Gratuity “Tip” Tucci (voiced by Rihanna) — nice pun, DreamWorks — who gets separated from her mother, Lucy (Jennifer Lopez). Tip, the animation company’s first black female protagonist, reluctantly teams up with a misfit Boov named Oh (Jim Parsons) after he mistakenly informs the Gorgs of his race’s location. With Tip on a quest to find her mother and Oh on the run from both the Gorgs and his own people, the duo attempts to overcome their differences and learn the importance of friendship along the way.
Sounds a bit conventional, right?
The story is, in fact, formulaic and offers little ingenuity. With rushed exposition, the misfit arcs of Tip and Oh fall short. Tip was bullied in school, but DreamWorks disappointingly fails to provide commentary on how she was discriminated against for being of Caribbean descent, instead only mentioning it offhandedly. Just as lazy is Oh’s backstory, as he was initially outcast by his race for no other reason than for being a little too friendly. The plot is predictable, and the themes are expressed very directly — seriously, the characters all go on long spiels about kid-friendly lessons and leave no room for deeper meaning.
Despite all this, the film does possess some redeeming qualities. A few of the jokes pass for an adult audience, and the characters become more endearing as the film progresses. While many of the more serious scenes come off as cheesy, a few are genuinely touching. The celebrity-filled cast provides some support for the film, and while the modern pop soundtrack is distracting at times, Rihanna’s featured songs fit well. The animation is mostly faultless, though some of the alien designs are too reminiscent of the 2010 film, “MegaMind.”
With “Home,” DreamWorks will certainly draw in its intended demographic, but it will leave older viewers shrugging and mumbling about how it’s just “kind of cute.” The film is fun, but it isn’t memorable — Tip and Oh are certainly no Shrek and Donkey. While the minority representation is a refreshing step in the right direction, DreamWorks has a lot to tweak plot- and character-wise in its future projects if it wants to salvage what’s barely left of its economic and reputable status.
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 4/2/2015 under the headline “Don’t leave ‘Home’ for new kids film”]
