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| An instantly likable, cute, purple alien character with a snug housecat on its head makes up this poster for Tim Johnson's Home |
An unpopular alien, who has made problems for his equals, bands up with a little girl, who has gotten lost from her mother here on earth.
Home is written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart (2008), both), based on the children's book The True Meaning of Smekday (2007) by Adam Rex (Smek for President (2015)), and directed by great Chicagoan filmmaker Tim Johnson (Antz (1998)).
The silly Boov alien race has somehow overtaken earth here in Home, and that is just one of the many things that aren't explained in it. The film is more invested in being a colorful mix of bright eye candy with patches of comedy and up-tempo music, where inquisitive questions are barred at the door; just brainless good times here. The film embraces the time it is made in for better and worse, so that when it still attempts to straddle a well of themes, it comes off as both superficial and dishonest. The questions can't be bridled by the thinking mind: Why this and why that, one can't help but wonder, - SPOILER and in particular; why do the entire Boov race suddenly go nuts for our ill-faring purple friend towards the end? Their conversion from unsympathetic bullies in the beginning is also unexplained.
Home conjures up a utopian, harmonious, multi-cultural world, - but it is actually funny along the silly way, - Jim Parsons (A Kid Like Jake (2018)) voicing is inspired, - and that is its saving grace.
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 135 mil. $
Box office: 386 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.85 times its cost)
[Home premiered 7 March (Boulder International Film Festival, Colorado) and runs 94 minutes. Production took place in California. The film opened #1 to a 52.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 5 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#2-#4-#4-#5). grossing 177.3 mil. $ (45.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 38.8 mil. $ (10.1 %) and China with 27.7 mil. $ (7.2 %). It was reported that DreamWorks spent an amount similar to the cost of the film for prints and advertising it. A hand-drawn spin-off series, Home: Adventures with Tip and Oh (2016-18) was produced without the voice stars for Netflix by DreamWorks Animation. Johnson returned with 2 shorts but has not returned with a feature yet; instead he has turned to executive producing. Parsons returned in Visions (2015). Home is rotten at 52 % with a 5.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Home?
