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2015’s 2nd feature film.

http://viooz.ac/movies/26651-home-2015.html

My opinion right after watching film

My opinion right after watching this film is that they had a good concept on paper, but the execution threw off everything that they were trying to get across. There was some plot elements that I was confused by, and there were some things that needed to be further expanded upon. It was somewhat difficult to get into the characters and the world they were presenting in the film.

Production

DreamWorks bought the rights to the book in 2008, and decided to make an adaption of it in 2011. The title of the film was initially Happy Smekday!, but it was changed to Home in 2013. The film was supposed to be released in October 2014, but it switched dates with Penguins of Madagascar earlier last year.

Story

The film starts with these alien Boov people finding Earth, as they are running away from their enemy the Gorg, completely trying to take over Earth from people, relocating them to some other place. Our main character Oh (Jim Parsons) is a loner from his people, and after he tries to invite them over to his party, no one shows up. A preteen girl named Tip (Rihanna) is looking for her mother, and is wandering all throughout town to find her. Oh sent invitations to everyone (in the galaxy) including Gorg, which causes them to want to arrest him. This causes him to bump into Tip.

And here we get the suupposedly humoroous greet between the two main characters, who start off disliking one another, and…. you all know where this is going. I REALLY am not impressed with the humor of this film. Anyways, Tip holds a lot of resentment of them for taking her mother away. It is weird that she is not creeped out or shocked by the appearance of a Boo.

I am a bit confused. They give us a flashback of Tip and her mother, and she looks a lot younger when her mother (Jennifer Lopez) was abducted, though it was an extremely recent action. She lets him out to fix her car, but he makes it into some weird device that they have to drive. They end up going on a road trip, as he is going to help her look for her mother, while the other Boos are continuing to look for him, since they need his password to shut down the invite. Oh is explaining Tip the story about the Boos and their issue with Gorg, which is why they are always running away.

As Tip goes to the washroom, Oh tries to drive off with the car and ditch her, but she comes out furiously, and yells at him for breaking his promise. He turns green every single time he lies, and as they both enter the car, they drive past the Boo, who needs his password. We get some more filler of Tip and Oh enjoying dancing (to Rihanna singing of course), and all of that. They end up falling out, and Tip yells at him for ruining everything for her, since she was just starting to fit in the area, before her mom left. I am assuming she is an immigrant, just like Rihanna with that statement.

We learn that Boos do not have mothers (how are they created? We will never know), and they continue to run because Grog is a taker, and yada, yada, yada. I wish they elaborated on detail a lot more in the film.

The two main characters tell jokes to one another, which is clearly supposed to establish their friendship. Oh is disguised, since he will be easily recognized by any Boo, since there is a search warrant against him, which will hinder their plans. They end up going to some place, and he sees that there is literally less than 2 minutes before the Gorg gets the email. Within a second left, Oh types the password. Tip tells him to look for her mother, telling him her name, and they know that she is in Australia.

The other Boos show up, and they are still determined to erase him, despite fixing his mistake, since he has been a screw up so many times, and will most likely continue to be a screw up. Tip sabotages the gravity, so they will let Oh go, and head towards Australia.

The Gorg somehow ends up chasing after them, and the car they are in gets crashed. Oh tells her that they need to run off to avoid danger, but she still wants to find her mother. They argue because of this, and this forces the angry separation part that the main characters go through in many films. After finally arriving in Australia, and seeing all of the other Boos being sucked up to their machines, he drags her along, but she still wants to go after her mother.

On the ship, he tells the Boos that humans are not like how they think, and we get all of those cliches mashed into one. She fails at finding he mother, and he i sad with being with the Boos, so he goes back, and helps her find her mother. Long story short, the Gorg only wanted the rock that was always on a staff that the Boos had -_-, and it was a starfish in a robotic suit. Boo ends up living with Tip and her mother in a happily ever after.

This is not the worst film to ensue from DreamWorks, but it is far from the best. There are a lot of cliches in the film, the jokes and the execution of certain and important events throw you off at times. We know a bit about the characters, but I want to learn a bit more than the typical stuff. It is one of those eh at best films.

Characters

There are only 2 characters that really need focus on this film, but just in general, the characters are nothing special at all in this film. The side characters are not memorable whatsoever, and the mains are kind of generic.

Oh is very, very boring to me, and is not a strong main character. He is an outcast, but very clumsy. Nothing new, and there is no depth with him whatsoever.

We learn that Tip is an immigrant who stands out from the others, but there is still not a lot of character to her, other than her goal to find her mother.

Animation

The animation is very nice. While the human designs are a bit too boxy for my liking the colors, textures, and designs of the alien characters are very desirable. While the background animation is not something you will instantly remember, it looks nice enough.

Music

Most of the music consisted of Rihanna singing a bunch of songs that I did not remember much, but I knew it had something to do with the film. I know that they of course had to cash off of her, but it is a big distraction to hear her voice in every single song, as it does kind of take you out of the atmosphere in the film, and into real life.

Reception at Release

When the film was released on March 27th, 2015, it (as of right now) made $158.3 million domestically, and $168.1 million elsewhere, which adds up a total amount of $326.4 million, which can be seen as an issue, since its production and prints/advertising cost is worth about  135 million each.

Critically, it received extremely mixed reviews, with the common complaints being that it is passable, lacking tension and depth, and that it is not engaging for the entire family, while positives consist of the colorful animation, the fast pace, and the jokes being somewhat decent.

Final Score

Story: 6/10

Characters: 5/10

Animation: 7.5/10

Music: 7/10

= 25.5/40 = 64%