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A little girl and her unexpected adventure with an unlikely friend.

It was a good movie, but just like 'Turbo', it was turned down by the critics and so those who follow them. Besides Disney and Pixar, DreamWorks Animation ain't that bad at all. Technical side of this film comes under same league with the other two top production house, but the story and the character are not strong enough. Comedies were awesome, and so the dialogues, the innovation in narration falls short with the same old cliche in the alien theme. The soundtracks were good though, especially that one used for the promotion, 'feel the light'.

For a change, the lead girl character was different and voice rendered by Rihanna. I said it many times that my first ever 3D animation was 'Ants', despite 'Toy Story' was the first feature length. And this film has been the best work of the director to till date since his first flick 'Antz'. As usual like any animated movie, it was targeted for children, but I enjoyed watching it. There won't be a sequel at least for now, but I would love to have one. For a change you can try this to get a break from the fairytales and princess stories.

6.5/10

Initial Thought: Honestly I'm not too sure what the exact reason I'm watching this is. I guess the cast is pretty interesting. Also the storyline sounds like a cute little idea. I watched the short and it was pretty funny so I am hoping this will be just as entertaining. I do tend to enjoyed most of Dreamworks animated films.

Characters/Acting: We have quite an interesting cast here from Jim Parsons to Rihanna. We even have Jennifer Lopez and Steve Martin. The way the Boov talk is pretty amusing and definitely reminds me of how foreigners talk when they somewhat understand English, but don't understand the order in which it should be said. I enjoyed all the characters here. They were all great in their own ways.

Story: Aliens take over earth, but one little girl and an outcast alien most likely end up turning it back to the way it was. I mean it's a cartoon so I mean it has to end like that right? This is a little different than what I had expected. We have evil aliens and "good" aliens that are cowards. There are some good beats of music in a few scenes in particular. The scene where Oh starts dancing made me chuckle quite a bit. I really liked the idea that it doesn't necessarily have a bad guy. It's about family and friendship.

Directing/Writing: Can you believe it that this is based on a book. I guess it shouldn't really be a surprise given that it's Hollywood. We get adaptations, sequels, or reboots. Tim Johnson directed Over the Hedge which I highly enjoyed as well as Antz (Dreamworks A Bug's Life copycat) which I enjoyed despite that. The only one he made so far that I hated was the Sinbad cartoon. Tom J. Astle hasn't really wrote anything above average other than Epic. Being as that and this are animated I'm hoping he keeps that touch. Same goes for Matt Ember who worked with him on those films.

Final Thought: This was such a beautiful movie. I'm surprised by how extremely underrated it is. The music probably doesn't appeal to everyone since it's almost completely Rihanna, but that didn't take away my enjoyment. Visually it is quite remarkable. Who cares if it is "safe" movie and somewhat cliche. It isn't meant to really push any boundaries. It's a nice little family movie in my opinion. Well at times I can be a real kid at heart. Besides there are much worse animated features out there.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since my youngest daughter was really eager to watch it, we went to see the damned thing in the movie theater. Well, eventually, it was not bad at all, even if it was a really typical DreamWorks effort. Indeed, the animation looked pretty good and the story was fairly entertaining but, like most of their productions, the whole thing still felt pretty lazy. I thought it was also seriously oriented towards very young children and I'm pretty sure most parents will be rather bored by the whole thing. Sure, there was a morality, but it was so obvious, so predictable, rather boring and unoriginal to be honest and I really had a hard time to care about what was going on. There was one detail that really impressed me though. I know, it might sound silly but I thought that the hair of Tip, the main character, looked just amazing. I mean, the animation in general was pretty good but her hair which was really curly and thick was just really impressive. Anyway, if you start paying attention to such trivial details, it is never a good sign and it means that there is definitely something wrong with your story. To conclude, even though I didn't like it much, I still think it is worth a look though, especially if you need to entertain your kids.