Home – fun, for the kids (mainly)

Shrek and Toy Story, or rather the two ‘holy grails’ of children’s films.  This is largely because they can be enjoyed by both kids and adults alike.  They are both packed with jokes and gags which can be appreciated on two levels – some of which the adults will roll their eyes at, others that will go completely over the little ones’ heads and have them asking Mummy and Daddy why they’re laughing.

Sadly, ‘Home’ isn’t one of these films.  Yes, it’s meant for children and if my ten year old daughter was writing this review she’d probably give it top marks.  And that would be a fair grade – from a child, i.e. its primary audience.  However, kids seldom write film reviews online.  I do.  And I had to sit through this.

To be fair... I’ve been forced to watch worse children’s movies in my time as a parent.  This one is about a race of aliens who one day decide that Earth will be their new home.  Naturally the existing earthlings who just so happen to inhabit the planet aren’t taken into a consideration.  All us pink flesh-bags are scooped up and dumped in Australia while the little purple spacemen merrily move into our apartment blocks and offices.  All humans but one.

A little girl (and her cat) called ‘Tip’ (believe it or not) is the only human left behind.  She exists kind of like ‘Newt’ from ‘Aliens,’ forced to scavenged and steal when the aliens’ backs are turned.  That’s until she meets ‘Oh’ (again, I didn’t name him).  He’s an alien who is generally a misfit and at odds with his species.  They form a friendship and yadder, yadder, yadder – adventure, bonding, if you’ve seen a kids’ movie you know how it goes.  And there’s a moral at the end and stuff like that.

This is all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff and I could live with that.  If it wasn’t for Oh himself.  To me – and I stress, I am only an adult – I found him really annoying.  It was almost like the film-makers wanted to give Jar-Jar Binks his own movie (*shudders* at the thought).  Seriously, this alien is very irritating.  He’s always doing the wrong thing and I can see why his own species want to get rid of him.  I was half tempted to jump into the TV screen and laser the little guy to death myself.

But, as I kept having to remind me, it’s a KIDS’ movie.  And I’m not the intended audience.  So, if you have a little one who you want to keep entertained for an hour and a half, stick ‘em in front of this DVD and they’ll be happy.  You can probably get away with popping out and sticking the kettle on.  You won’t miss much and, by this stage, you’ve probably seen enough kids’ movies to work out that everyone lives happily ever after.  But, unlike Toy Story and Shrek, I doubt even the kids will be that keen on repeat viewings of ‘Home.’ Find a friend or relative with the DVD and borrow it for a couple of weeks while the children are on holiday.  Then, if they really love it, buy it.  Don’t waste your money straight away. 

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back