Simply A Masterpiece

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"Almost Home" is a 4-minute promo short film for the (then) upcoming animated movie "Home" based on a novel by Adam Rex. The director is Todd Wilderman and his most know work so far was "Open Season 2", which he co-directed. This little movie here is basically the same joke for 4 minutes. However, at this runtime it is fine I guess. It may not have been enough for 7 minutes or more. we follow a group of little purple aliens who want to explore a new planet, but everywhere they get, they run into severe difficulties which makes them leave right away. If they are lucky, that is, as sometimes the planet is also hit by a huge comet and explodes. In the end, they approach Planet Earth and the movie ends where the full feature takes off. I have not seen "Home" (yet), but I probably will at some point. The voice of Steve Martin is in here already just like in the "real" movie. Okay short film. Recommended.

Twentieth Century Fox, please explain to every Australian, why would you advertise an upcoming 3D DreamWorks computer-graphics-animated movie called HOME, when Twentieth Century Fox had no intention of ever showing that film in 3D? ABOUT HOME was released from 7 March 2014 by Twentieth Century Fox, to be then screened with each new DreamWorks children's' movie. I have seen this fast-paced, wonderful, charming and captivating 3D DreamWorks computer-graphics-animated four minute comedy short called "ALMOST HOME" several times now. Before the 3D Mr. Peabody and Sherman, and 3D Penguins of Madagascar, plus the Blue Sky Studios film 3D Rio 2.The Boov's ship runs from several "safe" planets, where the dictator leader of the aliens called the Boov, their Captain Smek (voiced by Steve Martin) had assured his fellow Boov that there was no possibility of any danger to the Boov, however again and again, each new safe planet turns out to be very unsafe. Captain Smek, is very funny as the forever lying dictator who continually takes credit for finding each new planet, however when each planet turns out horrible, suddenly Captain Smek denies responsibility. The trouble is that on 19th March 2015, I went to see the full length 3D version of HOME in my local multi-screen cinema, but if you live anywhere in Australia, then Twentieth Century Fox has chosen to never ever allow screenings of the full length 3D version of HOME in any of our 2,057 Australian Cinema screens.

This short consists of a bunch of very strange looking aliens bouncing from planet to planet looking for a new home. The leader (voiced by Steve Martin) is very funny because he takes credit for EVERYTHING--and when each planet turns out horrible, suddenly he's not responsible!I found myself really irritated as I watched "Almost Home". After all, it had amazingly good computer animation and made me laugh. But, after really getting in to this short film, I felt like it was all just a giant come on when you realize it's less intended as a cartoon short and more just an ad for some upcoming Dreamworks release! For shame! Now I am not against the notion of using these characters in a future full- length film--they are cute and the character design was really nice. But the film just ends--without any sort of resolution or proper ending- -just a teaser for the longer film. To me, this showed contempt for the audience and they could have easily wrapped up the short instead of just having it end after four minutes!

I've seen this DreamWorks computer-animated short twice now, first, before the Mr. Peabody and Sherman feature and, just now, before Rio 2. It seems these creatures, the leader of which is voiced by Steve Martin, are looking for a planet which is completely safe. As in, no danger to them whatsoever. No dice. With that mentioned, I'll just say that while I was a little amused by the premise, it felt too short and rushed. So no, this wasn't very enjoyable. Now finding out on this site that it's a preparation for a feature version, maybe that version will be a whole lot better. We'll see. Really, maybe they shouldn't have put such a partly pointless short version out since a longer version is supposed to come out soon. I think that's all I'll comment on...