Tuesdays with Media: Home

This past weekend, I watched Home while I was visiting with the Larsens.  Neither Ian nor I had seen the film before, but the kids both had.  If you're not familiar with the movie, here's the trailer:

The first thing that jumped out to me about this movie was how it lacked any and all subtly when it came to storytelling.  The climax was broadcast in the first fifteen minutes and the characters' personalities are as flat as can be.  Ian said that the movie felt like it had been made by committee and that everyone was simply following a film-making formula and I agreed with his assessment -- imagine our surprise when, during the credits, we learned that the movie was adapted from a novel.  Having not read the novel, I honestly hope that the movie butchered the story.

One area in which the movie does well is with its designs.  The two alien races seen in the movie, the Boov and the Borg, are both strongly influenced by some of the most alien-looking animals on Earth: cuttlefish (or perhaps octopuses) and starfish, respectively.  The Boov especially are designed to be as cute as possible while still looking other-worldly.

I had heard positive things about the movie due to its central human character, Gratuity "Tip" Tucci, being of mixed race.  I support having characters of all races in works of fiction.  In fact, most of the characters in my stories -- the human ones at least -- are never described beyond their gender, but I have written multiple characters that are minorities.  Even so, characters need to be well-written and properly developed first and foremost and that is not the case of Tip.  Part of the problem is the actress playing her, pop singer Rihanna.  For someone who is not an actress, the performance is decent enough, but the character never comes to life.  But even if the producers had gone with a more experienced voice actor (like the amazingly talented Tara Strong), the character of Tip is just never really developed beyond being a headstrong preteen girl.

Another area where the production design wins points is in the alien technology shown throughout the story.  All of the Boov's tech is based on spheres and bubbles and is bright and shiny.  On the other hand, the Borg's tech is triangular with sharp edges and everything is dark and industrial in tone.  These desperate designs helped to better differentiate the two races from one another while still keeping them distinctly "not human."

In the end, Home is completely uncreative with its story and characters while having a very unique look and feel to its design.  As a visual spectacle, the movie is pretty fun -- too bad that's where most of the enjoyment ends.  Home is harmless to watch with kids, but if you skip it, you're not missing much.

Home is distributed by 20th Century Fox.