It's another quiet week at the cinema following the end of award season but there is still one film at the cinema this week worth checking out.

Home

Director: Tim Johnson

Cast: Jim Parsons, Rihanna, Steve Martin and Jennifer Lopez

We have had more than our fair share of aliens crossing the silver screen over the years. In fact, it’s hard to believe that with the amount of aliens we’ve seen, for children they are always presented as a friend from another galaxy as opposed to the ones who might hunt you down on a spaceship when you are the last known survivor. ET nailed the entire idea but animation has allowed us to move in other directions with our friends from the galaxy with favourites like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch.

Oh is going to be another one of those aliens.

Home revolves around the character of Oh, a little alien who seems very out of place among his people, the Boov. The Boov are a cowardly alien race, they take over planets and constantly run from their enemy who threatens their very existence. When they take over Earth, one of the many human beings who loses her mother is Tip, a young girl who blames the Boov for everything that has happened. When Oh finds himself on the run from the rest of his race for giving away their location in the galaxy, he finds he must depend on Tip to get him to safety. Tip asks him to make one promise, help her find her mother. With their unlikely friendship, an unlikely change starts to occur for Oh.

Despite the amount of promotion for the film, Home doesn’t exactly live up to expectations in the comedy stakes. That’s not to say it’s terrible, it’s just not as funny as one would expect. However, it does have an enormous amount of hope and heart. The company behind the film, Dreamworks, are currently in a lot of financial difficulty and they are literally pinning all of their hopes to Home this year. It certainly looks like a sequel could be in the works.

Jim Parsons is perfect as the voice of Oh delivering many of the laughs throughout the film. However, Rihanna becomes tiresome as she features heavily on the soundtrack as well as the voice of Tip. The real stand out performance here is of course from Steve Martin as Captain Smek, the leader of the Boov and all round mad man.

It won’t be enough to change your life but the children should enjoy the laughs and the rest of the audience may just be a little taken with Oh.

Insurgent

Director: Robert Schwentke

Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ansel Elgort, Miles Tiller

It was never going to be the Hunger Games, we knew that, but there was a hope that the Divergent trilogy of books may actually result in some good young adult films. The first instalment of the film wasn't the greatest production in the world but it still had enough interesting content to get the audience through. Divergent introduced us to a world divided by factions and virtues where everyone keeps the peace by remaining in their place. However, Tris Prior discovers she is a little piece of every faction and must go on the run to protect her life.

Insurgent picks the story up following Tris losing her parents. She is still on the run and in hiding with her brother and boyfriend following the death of her parents. Her arch enemy and the woman who wishes to preserve the order, Jeanine, has discovered a box which holds a message from the Founders of their society but this can only be opened by a someone who is 100% divergent. This, of course, means that Tris is the only person who can open it putting her directly on a collision course with Jeanine and risking her life and others.

Although Insurgent should technically start to pick up the tempo from the first film, it does exactly the opposite resulting in the audience feeling bored and a little left out. The cast are the latest up and coming stars, particularly Miles Teller who should have earned an Oscar nomination for Whiplash and Shailene Woodley, who is honestly far better than this. The action scenes seem a bit contrived and time moves at a very slow pace over the course of the running time.

Overall this is just incredibly bad direction from Robert Schwentke who has taken over for the rest of the films. It's short-sighted, boring and it really needed to step up a pace.