Home

A smart concept is thoroughly wasted in this cute but grating Dreamworks animated comedy. It opens with an alien invasion – but not one of those messy, bloodthirsty ones. Our new extraterrestrial overlords, the cheerful, squashy Boov, merely want to shift the population of Earth to a new home in Australia – renamed Happy Humans Town – so they can enjoy the rest of the planet in peace. But it’s not long before their plans are threatened by Oh, a renegade Boov voiced tiresomely by US comedian Jim Parsons. He’s helped by a plucky young earthling sidekick, Tip, voiced by singer Rihanna, who also provides a bland, intrusive ‘concept soundtrack’. Spreading its net as widely as possible, ‘Home’ offers pratfalls and moral lessons for little ones, cute cats and slushy pop for the tweeners and snappy cultural references and wannabe-offbeat humour for the older kids. The result is inoffensive but flavourless, crammed with familiar elements from better movies – ‘Lilo and Stitch’, ‘Toy Story’, ‘Despicable Me’ – but lacking any clear identity of its own.