Theatrical shorts screened together with animated features seem to be making a comeback; while they have always been common practice with Pixar, as of late they have come back in style at Disney as well, and now, Dreamworks follows in their shoes by releasing a short called “Almost Home” both online and for screening together with their feature “Mr. Peabody and Sherman”. Except “Almost Home” isn’t a self-contained short as much as it is a trailer for Dreamworks’ upcoming film “Home” starring the same characters. Whatever faults one may find with the output of Dreamworks, lack of productivity isn’t one: they are always preparing something new.
The four minutes short features the Boov, a purple race of small aliens, in search of a new residential planet, which they must find soon or perish (their leader, voiced by Steve Martin, displays the usual Dreamworks characteristics of excessive sitcom-like talk which is supposed to be funny if you haven’t already seen too many American comedies). After being discouraged in their efforts again and again in increasingly more radical ways, the travelers finally decide to head towards Earth- a disappointing outcome in anticipation of the full feature, I would say, since I would have enjoyed much more the promise of a clash between completely alien cultures. Then again, the story is based on a children’s book I’m not familiar with, which may provide good source material.
In a nutshell, “Almost Home” displays everything that’s right and wrong with Dreamworks animations: on one hand, an entertaining premise and a sense of fun; on the other hand, too-familiar comic beats, non-distinctive celebrity voices (and seeing names like Rihanna listed in the full cast for the feature tend to make my opinion seem even more founded) and an overuse of telling instead of showing. Although this short is cute, there’s nothing that makes it stand out as a top-notch production of a top-notch studio, and if it were to be submitted anonymously to a film festival it would probably remain unremarked. While I’m glad that the short-before-a-feature trend is catching on, Dreamworks haven’t put as much effort into it as their competitors (remember the lovely “Day and Night” that ran with Pixar’s “Toy Story 3”?), and this attempt is more of an advertisement than a sample of the studio’s mastery of the short form. Let’s hope they’ll have something better on offer with their next feature.
