Review of Home (2015) by Matt C — 23 Jun 2015

Home is the type of movie that parents put on to babysit their kids when they can't be bothered to amuse them. While visually cute on occasion, the movie is extremely unlikely to be amusing to anyone over the age of ten.

It's utterly harmless, but there are so many better animated movies that are entertaining for the whole family that render Home to be pointless. It isn't that fun; it's just colorful. In fact, there are several times that it's annoying, and even more times that it's really boring, and it's fully predictable.

Now, I mostly saw this because it was playing at a second-run theater near me. It's a good thing that the ticket was only $4.00 because this movie is at times just an ad for Rihanna's music. As if casting the ironically one-note Rihanna for the lead voice role wasn't enough, they plug her music several times; the movie is basically an ad for the soundtrack anyways.

Rihanna's interactions with Jim Parsons don't help either. If you find him to be annoying in things like The Big Bang Theory then you'll want to shout at the screen sometimes here. His gags are one-note and he continued to be typecast here, relying on his "I'm so cute and nerdy!" schtick.

His source of humor is basically his lack of using contractions and awkward use of the English language (e.g.: "I am excitement," "My hands are in the air like I just do not care," etc.

). The result is tiresome. The movie as a whole just doesn't have enough substance. It's so incredibly simplistic that it gets boring halfway through its runtime, and it's only 94 minutes. Some could even say that this is the type of kids movie that panders towards children, and that statement would be really understandable.

The only commendable thing here is the fact that the main character isn't a white male. Otherwise, this movie does nothing new and is likely to bore parents. In fact, a lot of kids in my showing seemed bored and wanted to leave.

So although Home has some bits that looks cool, it just goes to show that writing is just as important as visuals. Hell, if you want something colorful and pretty, watch Spring Breakers or something (but you probably aren't interested in both of those movies anyways).

Home gets boring very quickly, and it's kind of disappointing that filmmakers feel that they can just slap together visuals and then call it a finished product, not putting thought into pacing, acting, writing, or comedy.

If a cynical movie seemingly didn't even work for its target audience, then it won't work for anyone else. Just buy the soundtrack and pretend that you saw the movie. That's probably just what they want anyways.

3.7/10, really bad, two thumbs down, far below average, etc.