Home

There's nothing particularly new or fancy about Dreamworks' latest animated affair. There are no breathtaking action sequences like in their How To Train Your Dragon and Kung-Fu Panda franchises. Nor is there the amount of laughs you'll find in their classics Megamind or, again, the Kung-Fu Panda films. Yet there's something so utterly sweet and innocent about Home that it zooms by with an enchanting charm. When people tell you to calm down by going to your happy place, it probably looks something like this. It's arguably the most child-centric movie Dreamworks have produced for a few years too. The adult-targeted humour is kept to a minimum and the physical comedy is amped up to levels that is normally irritating but here works an absolute treat. Its success can be attributed, in a big way, to the lovable alien Oh (Jim Parsons). A clumsy go-getter with endearing optimism, cuddly colour-changing looks, and amusing speech patterns, Oh steals the spotlight whenever he is on screen, which is about 95% of the time. As his plucky partner in adventure, Tip, Rihanna's precocious human child is fairly stock standard, whilst Steve Martin's dim-witted leader of Oh's Boov race lands a few hilarious moments among some dull ones. Vibrant, energetic and with an unexpected tear-jerking finale, Home falls on the right side of simple.