Home (II) (2015)

Home is one of the most standard family films you'd get, in spite of its likable character designs, colorful visuals and intriguing premise. The film doesn't seem to offer beyond those dazzling spectacles and unending comedic antics. While that's not a terrible thing, the overall film feels more of a distraction for children to see in cinema. There is a totally appealing world built here and there is a theme hidden somewhere, but Home rather just conforms to the typical style of CGI kids movies today that follows the fast paced energetic set of punchlines and action until it finally decided to reveal what the whole story is all about. The overall film is undeniably adorable, but we've come to love animated movies even better than this generic quality.

It all sets in a friendly invasion by an alien race that is hiding from an enemy, since they are new in planet Earth, they don't exactly understand enough of the world thus they have to humorously misuse most of its objects, having a hard time using their language, and make a mess around every place, usually landmarks. The main character, Oh, then meets a young human girl who at first hated these aliens for capturing her mother after separating every human to an isolated civilization, but slowly earns trust after befriending with Oh. The center here seems to be about avoiding naivety and misjudgments or something. The ending also seems like it has this same sentiment, but the plot doesn't do much to build that up pretty well. Sure, most of it takes place in a car with the two heroes talking and learning each other's culture, mainly treated as a gag, but the narrative feels so uncertain, we're just stuck with these two fooling around and getting involve with more trouble until the film decided to jump into its third act. Like everything happens so randomly.

It's full of energy, but at the same time it sort of feels lazy. The story contains some interesting ideas and themes that could transcend itself from its first impression, but the film rather prioritizes the most common choices to absolutely keep the children's attention, which are the ones that don't necessarily help making the storytelling compelling. It may have ended with a heartwarming message, but everything else is so drowned with sudden action and humor, and so little inspiration is left to the audience. But the animation is cute, it's definitely designed that way. Everything looks so whimsical; what could have been a disastrous alien invasion, rather makes the world look like some sort of an amusement park. And how the characters look is so cartoony that this studio might earn another memorable character. Too bad, those designs only go that far. The vocal performances are delightful enough to bring them to life.

Home needs more tweaks, mostly in its own plot. So much potential surrounding in its world, the movie rather focuses on what the mass would usually get in these animated movies. It may be delightful, there is some creativity in its visuals and it's easy to like these characters and the enthusiasm behind their voices, but it's also forgettable, due to its really uninspired storytelling. It's like they just threw everything together and sat around, letting the cuteness and random sentiments do the talking, but they somehow forget how it works, or just lacks the care it deserves. But whatever, just like what I said, this is perfect to distract the children, but this won't end up being a classic or anything.