Power Twins Comics

Thanks to a cancelled appearance, I found myself in a sold-out theatre full of children on the opening weekend of Home.

Home is about 20 minutes too long, completely predictable, the soundtrack (exclusively made up of Rihanna songs) is forgettable, and there were moments when I was the only person in the theatre laughing… way too loud and for way too long. Its flaws are mainly in execution, and that leaves a lot of room for some genuinely funny and interesting moments in an otherwise underwhelming film.

Jim Parsons’ delivery of the main alien character, “Oh”, makes me hope for his sake that “The Big Bang Theory” goes on for a long time. He is clearly typecast as Sheldon Cooper-esque. It works in this case with the aliens’ stilted command of English. You’ve likely seen the lines “Can I come into the out, now?” and “It should to hover much better,” in the trailers.

Rihanna’s character, Gratuity “Tip” Tucci, is more typical of the “you aliens don’t know anything” and “humans are going to teach you something you never considered” archetypes. While she learns to accept Oh as a friend, it is ultimately on her own terms, which is pretty typical of this genre. That Rihanna provided the entire soundtrack sort of makes that same relationship with the audience.

Story wise, Home is not totally a typical friendly alien accidentally invades Earth before the rest of his fleet movie. In the first moments, the Boov successfully and completely overtake the human race. The Boov are a fundamentally cowardly species and they colonize “Smekland”—named in honor of his greatness Captain Smek (Steeve Martin)—to escape the planet destroying Gorg. Rather than wiping out the human race, the Boov most considerately transport everyone to “Happy Humans Town” in Australia. This sets up a fundamental Boov trait, which turns out to be the crux of their conflict with the Gorg. “Oh, no. It is the Boov who are the takers.” Happy Humans Town seems like a nice place, supplied with plenty of food, water, housing, and amusement parks. In fact, with living spaces more confined, and with the common plight of the Boov invasion, the humans seem genuinely happy… and more happy to hold their Boov protest signs when the Gorg show up to force the Boov to run away again.

Overall, I enjoyed it. It was fun, even if a bit self-promoting.