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(Image credit: DreamWorks Animation)

A lonely accident-prone alien befriends a lonely human teenager in the DreamWorks Animation sci-fi comedy adventure Home. The set-up (taken from Adam Rex's children's book The True Meaning of Smekday) is hardly out of this world, but the starry voice cast provides plenty of breezy fun. Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) is the alien, a blobby tentacled creature called Oh, and singer Rihanna is the teenager, Tip, left behind after Oh's timid race, the Boov, invade Earth and deport all the humans to Australia. Jennifer Lopez supplies the voice of Tip's missing mom and sings one of the songs on the soundtrack (Rihanna's songs also feature prominently) and Steve Martin is the aliens' ridiculously self-important captain, who goes around brandishing a sceptre he calls the Shusher.

Certificate U. Runtime 94 mins. Director Tim Johnson.

Home is available from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Blu-Ray and DVD from 20th July 2015. http://youtube.com/v/MyqZf8LiWvM

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.