Home

DreamWorks Animation movies are a little too frothy, chock full of beautiful visuals and quirky fun but devoid of substance. Home (rated PG) is no exception. It’s burdened with bathroom humor (literally), fragmented pop songs in lieu of dramatic scoring, and narrative dead ends.

Home is the story of a lonely 12-year-old girl and a misfit alien becoming unlikely allies. We identify with Gratuity “Tip” Tucci (voiced by Rihanna) refusing to give up when she is left behind when the entire human race relocates to Australia. Oddball Oh (voiced by Jim Parsons) is too friendly, too clumsy, too exuberant for his go-along-get-along alien brethren. They shun him, and in his haste to win them over upon their colonization of Earth he becomes an accidental fugitive. He sets out on an adventure to rectify his mistake and help “Tip” find her mother.

As Oh learns about humans, we learn about ourselves. What are we supposed to learn?

Home wants us to revel in our capacity for selfless heroics and our love of family, but it addresses nothing of the pain of life. We are instead lectured that mistakes are what make us human, that we must learn to empathize. Indeed, the hero’s critical moral test is whether he will take a stand, and trust his opponent to do the right thing and stay his hand from destruction.

This hero does not fight.

A recurring gag of Earth objects being used in the wrong way (what happens when a football is eaten) and the quirks of the aliens (their involuntary dancing and color shifting) should appeal to kids ages 4-9. There’s no bad language. There’s not much offensive here; Home is just another cotton-candy DreamWorks diversion.