The $386 million commercial hit and currently trending sci-fi comedy Home marks an animation reunion for Jennifer Lopez nearly two decades in the making. Home is a colorful DreamWorks Animation adventure that finds an outcast but friendly Boov alien called Oh (Jim Parsons) teaming up with a teenage girl named Tip Tucci (Rihanna) to find her mother after they lose one another during the Boov invasion of Earth. Lopez voices Tip's mother, Lucy, in a small but essential role in Home's heartfelt, family-centered story.
Home's cast and fun premise make for major rewatch value, proven by the film's current trending status on Netflix's top ten movies in the U.S. Lopez is no stranger to Netflix's Top 10, as her recently trending sci-fi action Atlas, 2023 action thriller The Mother, 2002 film Enough, and a handful of others have all made the chart at one time or another. However, when it comes to animation, it's much harder to find her represented. In Lopez's film career, she's taken on only three animation roles, one in which she first worked closely with a notable Home figure.
|
Animation Movie |
Year |
Jennifer Lopez's Role |
|---|---|---|
|
Ice Age: Collision Course |
2016 |
Shira |
|
Home |
2015 |
Lucy Tucci |
|
Ice Age: Continental Drift |
2012 |
Shira |
|
Antz |
1998 |
Azteca |
Home Reunited Jennifer Lopez & Tim Johnson 17 Years After Antz
Jennifer Lopez Voiced Azteca In Tim Johnson's Antz
Home is directed by Tim Johnson, who is not only a DreamWorks director but an animator and producer for the animation studio as well. The well-known films that fall under Johnson's direction include Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and the Annie-award-winning heist comedy Over the Hedge, while for the critically-received and more recent animations Abominable and How to Train Your Dragon, Johnson served as executive producer. Well before all these endeavors, Johnson directed the 1998 DreamWorks classic Antz, which cast Lopez in her first-ever animated role.
Similarly to Home, Antz featured Lopez in a supporting role, playing the worker ant known as Azteca. Antz primarily follows Z (Woody Allen), an anxious ant who makes it his mission to help save the worker population from the tyrannical rule of General Mandible – but as one of Z's most trusted friends, Lopez's Azteca is also important to Antz story, as she supports and, even, joins Z in sticking it to their totalitarian society. Ultimately, critics revered the Antz movie's perceptive but fun story and beautiful visuals, which is more to say than Johnson and Lopez's recent collaboration on Home.
Why Antz's Reviews Are So Much Better Than Home
Antz Was A Groundbreaking Animation In The Late 90s
Home is beautifully animated and has a perfectly heartfelt story that children, especially, delight in. However, compared to Antz, Home's critical reception falls incredibly short. On Rotten Tomatoes, Home holds an approval rating with critics of 53%, while Antz earned a Certified Fresh score of 92%. For critics, the Antz movie's adult-leaning, unorthodox story, innovative visuals, and vocal performances, which comprised the likes of Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Christopher Walken, Sylvester Stallone, and more big-name celebrities, earned it such high regard.
Yet, the Antz movie's praises don't sound too far off from what Home has to offer, which begs the question of why the two movies have that big of a disparity in critical scoring. Much of it may have to do with when the animations were released. In the late 90s, Antz proved groundbreaking, particularly in how it was animated, while in more current times, Home apparently needed more to impress the critical eye. Interestingly enough, when judged by the general population, Jennifer Lopez and Tim Johnson's Home eclipses Antz with a 64% RT audience score to the latter's 52%.
Source: Netflix, Rotten Tomatoes
