Home Alone 2 4k Review

[Anthony Small]

Home Alone" is a splendid movie title because it evokes all sorts of scary nostalgia. Being left home alone, when you were a kid, meant hearing strange noises and being afraid to look in the basement - but it also meant doing all the things that grownups would tell you to stop doing, if they were there. Things like staying up to watch Johnny Carson, eating all the ice cream, and sleeping in your parents' bed.

"Home Alone" is about an 8-year-old hero who does all of those things, but unfortunately he also single-handedly stymies two house burglars by booby-trapping the house. And they're the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people.

The movie's screenplay is by John Hughes, who sometimes shows a genius for remembering what it was like to be young. His best movies, such as "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," find a way to be funny while still staying somewhere within the boundaries of remote plausibility. This time, he strays so far from his premise that the movie suffers.

If "Home Alone" had limited itself to the things that might possibly happen to a forgotten 8-year-old, I think I would have liked it more. What I didn't enjoy was the subplot involving the burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), who are immediately spotted by little Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), and made the targets of his cleverness.

The movie opens in the Chicago suburbs with a houseful of people on the eve of a big family Christmas vacation in Paris. There are relatives and kids everywhere, and when the family oversleeps and has to race to the airport, Kevin is somehow overlooked in the shuffle. When he wakes up later that morning, the house is empty. So he makes the best of it.

A real kid would probably be more frightened than this movie character, and would probably cry. He might also try calling someone, or asking a neighbor for help. But in the contrived world of this movie, the only neighbor is an old coot who is rumored to be the Snow Shovel Murderer, and the phone doesn't work. When Kevin's parents discover they've forgotten him, they find it impossible to get anyone to follow through on their panicked calls - if anyone did so, the movie would be over.

The plot is so implausible that it makes it hard for us to really care about the plight of the kid. What works in the other direction, however, and almost carries the day, is the gifted performance by young Macaulay Culkin, as Kevin. Culkin is the little boy who co-starred with John Candy in "Uncle Buck," and here he has to carry almost the whole movie. He has lots of challenging acting scenes, and he's up to them. I'm sure he got lots of help from director Chris Columbus, but he's got the stuff to begin with. He's such a confident and gifted little actor that I'd like to see him in a story I could care more about.

"Home Alone" isn't that story. When the burglars invade Kevin's home, they find themselves running a gamut of booby traps so elaborate they could have been concocted by Rube Goldberg - or by the berserk father in "Last House on the Left." Because all plausibility is gone, we sit back, detached, to watch stunt men and special effects guys take over a movie that promised to be the kind of story audiences could identify with.

There is even a better rationale for why the hero is left home alone. Played by a winning newcomer named Alex D. Linz, who seems almost too small for a middle initial, the kid gets the chicken pox. His dad is out of town on business, his mom has an emergency at the office, and his brother and sister are at school. So he's left home alone, with a beeper number, a fax number, a cell phone number, the number of Mrs. Hess across the street and dialing 911 as a fallback position.

The subplot has already been set into motion. A spy ring has stolen a computer chip, and because of an exchange of identical bags at the San Francisco airport, the toy truck containing the chip has ended up at Mrs. Hess' house. Four spies fly to Chicago on the same plane with Mrs. Hess and have four hours on board to search for the bag, but somehow they fail to find it and end up deciding to burglarize every house on little Alex's block.

And the booby traps, while painful, are funnier this time. Sure, people fall down dumbwaiters and through floors, and get hit on the head with dumbbells and flower pots, and end up in the frozen swimming pool, but Raja Gosnell's direction sidesteps the painfulness and makes it OK. The stunts at the end are more slapstick and less special effects. And the result is either more entertaining than in the first two films, or I was having a very silly day.

Family is important, though relationships can be complicated. Love and forgiveness outweigh petty arguments. Initial judgments of others can be misleading. Believing in yourself can help conquer fears and meet challenges. Crime doesn't pay. But the movie also suggests that violence toward others is acceptable in certain circumstances.

Kevin is brave and resourceful, demonstrating courage and perseverance. He also learns to be more thoughtful and kind toward others. But he's pretty vicious in his attacks on the burglars and puts himself in dangerous situations. He also talks back to his parents and family members. Adult characters are questionable role models: Kevin's mother speaks quite harshly to him at one point, though later she shows genuine worry and remorse, going to great lengths to get to him as quickly as possible. The two burglars are greedy, threatening, show no concern for others; they're portrayed as arrogant and easily fooled. A neighbor shows unexpected kindness and insight, even though he is harshly judged by the film's kids. Overwhelmed adults and bratty kids are painted in a harsh light -- the name-calling and arguing is nonstop. Gender stereotypes are reinforced via children's toys and language from teens, such as "babes."

Frequent slapstick violence, especially toward the end. Bullying among siblings, particularly from Kevin's older brother, Buzz. Adults fall down stairs, get hit with blunt objects, step on nails and glass, get burned, have a tarantula placed on their face, and are knocked unconscious with a snow shovel. Injury detail is shown, including burns to hand and head. The lead character, a young boy, shoots a thief in the groin area with a BB gun, which he carries around for a prolonged period and shoots at other objects. He watches a mafia-themed movie in which a character kills another with a machine gun while laughing maniacally, with the body seen convulsing on the floor riddled with bullets. An imaginary scene shows a furnace growling and talking in a threatening way. Passing mentions of murder, corpses, death by suicide.

Parents need to know that Home Alone is a hit 1990 John Hughes-directed holiday comedy in which a young boy named Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is left to fend for himself when his harried parents mistakenly leave him behind during a family trip. Expect disrespect between kids and adults and sibling name-calling early in the movie: Kevin is called a "disease" and "puke" by his older siblings and even a "little jerk" by his uncle, while Kevin talks back to his mother. There's no diversity (all characters are White and mostly male), and there's a ton of slapstick violence: Kevin trips would-be burglars down a flight of stairs, burns them, hits them with heavy objects, places sharp items on the ground for them to step on, and shoots them with a BB gun. Dangerous behavior with no real consequences includes Kevin sledding down the stairs and out the front door or going out shopping and walking alone after dark. Kevin also is shown watching a violent gangster movie that involves a character being repeatedly shot with a machine gun. He finds an issue of Playboy in a secret stash in his older brother's room but doesn't express much interest in it. Profanity includes "ass," "bitch," "damn," "hell," and "s--t." Overall, the movie is fun for kids and adults, but the violence and language make it inappropriate for younger children. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.

HOME ALONE is the story of 8-year-old Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), a mischievous kid who feels largely ignored by his large extended family. While everyone is preparing for a Christmas vacation in Paris, Kevin gets in trouble, is banished to the attic overnight, and wishes his family would just disappear. He gets his wish the next morning when they mistakenly leave him behind. At first Kevin is elated -- but pretty soon he realizes that being home alone isn't all it's cracked up to be. He misses his mom (who tries any and every means of getting home to her son) and even his brother, who bullies him. With all of the block's other families also away, Kevin has no one to turn to. Meanwhile, a pair of bumbling burglars played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern take advantage of the situation by pillaging the neighborhood. It's up to Kevin to defend his home, using every prank in his well-stocked arsenal. A bevy of violent, slapstick, wince-inducing episodes ensues as Kevin fights to foil the burglars' plans.

This is a good-natured, albeit unrealistic, family film that both kids and adults will enjoy if they're OK with the violence, profanity, and disrespectful behavior. Its endearing story and a charming performance by Culkin make Home Alone a standout among the usual holiday movie fare. Without resorting to the all-too-adult double entendres that dominate many family films, this one focuses more on slapstick humor and innocence to convey its story. That said, that very reliance on slapstick does mean it's chock-full of wince-inducing violence. It's not for the weak-stomached and definitely requires some major suspension of disbelief.

Home Alone's runaway success upon release was due largely to its players, most notably Culkin. Previously cast in supporting roles in movies such as Rocket Gibraltar and Uncle Buck, Culkin is Home Alone's main attraction. Appearing in nearly every scene, he maintains a level of consistency that's a testament to both his talent and that of director Chris Columbus (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Mrs. Doubtfire). Catherine O'Hara (Best in Show, SCTV) does a fine job as Kevin's overwrought, guilt-ridden mom, and Pesci and Stern have great chemistry and handle the physical comedy with aplomb. Another performance of note is John Candy's cameo as Polka Band Shuttle Chief Gus Polanski. Although his role is brief, he nearly steals the show.

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