Rotten Tomatoes score: 54%
The Home Alone series has become one of the classics of my generation, taking its place alongside Saved by the Bell, The Mighty Ducks, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's one of those movies that I've seen so many times I don't even really watch it anymore; I just put it on and then let it play.
In the first movie, the McCallister family--including mom and dad, Buzz and the other siblings, freeloading Uncle Frank and his brood, and of course little Kevin--are all planning to spend Christmas in Paris. Kevin doesn't care for the idea, and he raises Cain while the family rushes around packing for the big trip.
The next morning, due to their unconscionable carelessness, the family members all leave Kevin behind when they hurry off to the airport. They don't realize this act of mind-boggling irresponsibility until they're airborne for France. Meanwhile, Kevin believes that he has wished his family out of existence, and celebrates his freedom by doing all the things kids would do if no one were around to stop them: He eats ice cream for lunch and watches a violent movie ("Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal"); he sleds down the stairs, and somehow swerves out the front door instead of slamming face-first into the wall; and he helps himself to the master bedroom, including his dad's shaving kit ("AAAAHH").
Kevin soon realizes that with his family permanently phased out of existence, he'll have to fend for himself. So he braves the gloomy basement to do the laundry, and he even makes a trip to the store to do some shopping. But when he encounters his reclusive, scary-looking neighbor (who is rumored to be a killer) at the store, he runs off with an un-paid-for toothbrush. In Kevin's mind, this makes him an outlaw, so he rushes home and hides.
The family, having landed at CDG airport, calls the police and the neighbors to check in on Kevin. What bad luck that every single solitary person in Chicago is out of town on vacation, and the police department's response is to send one cop to the house to knock for 30 seconds and then leave. Since Kevin still believes the cops are out to bust him for the toothbrush heist, he refuses to answer.
Around this point we meet the Wet Bandits, a couple of petty crooks named Harry and Marv, who make their living burglarizing suburban homes at Christmas time. How they pay the bills from January to November is not addressed. The Wet Bandits have their sights set on the McCallister home, and so desirable is this target that they decide to break in even after they realize that Kevin is still there.
The sequence with the burglars is all most people remember about this movie, but it actually takes up only about 20 minutes of the final act. This slapstick-fest really cracked me up as a kid, but the older I get, the more it makes me cringe. It's mostly pretty cartoony, but watching live-action actors do these pratfalls gets uncomfortable sometimes. Anyway, the little jerk defeats the crooks and they get arrested.
He's reunited with his mother, who has spent the last two days flying back from Paris, and then thumbing a ride with John Candy and his polka band from Scranton to Chicago. What a relief! Surely such adventures are once-in-a-lifetime experiences that will never recur.
Chris Columbus, 1992
Rotten Tomatoes score: 24%
Two years later, another movie was released, which painstakingly (you might say slavishly) re-created every major plot point from the first Home Alone, but this time it takes place in New York.
Yes, the McCallisters, who are given to bouts of felony child neglect, are taking off for Miami this holiday season. Thanks to a mishap at O'Hare, Kevin boards a flight to New York instead. This was pre-9/11, back when airlines freely let unaccompanied minors board a plane two seconds before all-call, with no boarding pass. Remember those days?
When Kevin lands in New York, he perpetrates credit card fraud with the help of a TalkBoy tape-recorder and checks into the Plaza Hotel, where Tim Curry and Rob Schneider grow suspicious of him. His worthless family is alerted to Kevin's location thanks to a credit-card trace that ferrets out the little identity thief.
He spends a while in the Big Apple before he discovers that, in a staggering, astronomical coincidence, Harry and Marv have arrived in New York on exactly the same day, intending to knock over a toy store and steal thousands of dollars of charity cash. So, since they're in New York at the same time, of course they meet Kevin--you know, because New York is such a small city, and it's easy for people to run into each other when they both happen to be there on the same day.
Kevin learns of the Wet Bandits' dastardly scheme and sets out to stop them. He does this by barricading himself into a relative's unoccupied brownstone, which conveniently is undergoing renovation, so Kevin has plenty of gadgets and tools around to build his complicated, expensive booby-traps.
The stunts are even more outrageous in this movie, but mercifully they're done in a sillier, more Looney Tunes fashion. Still, some of them are just absurd, like the "X-ray" effect when Marv gets electro-shocked. It's supposed to look like a goofy cartoon effect, but it doesn't work at all, and it's just really creepy. Also, the fact that Kevin is no longer a cute little kid makes him seem downright sadistic most of the time. I was rooting for the crooks.
The McCallisters show up in New York and castigate Tim Curry for scaring the kid into running away from the hotel. You know, I understand that they're angry, and the hotel staff didn't handle the situation very well, but wow, it takes a lot of nerve to blame a hotel concierge for endangering your son after you've just gotten on a plane without the little bastard for the second straight Christmas.
Kevin and his family are happily reunited again, but in my imagination, there's another act where Kevin's parents rot in prison with Harry and Marv. I think the only even remotely likable characters in this movie are Mr. Duncan from the toy store and the creepy pigeon lady.
Now, there was a Home Alone 3, but it featured a totally different family. I haven't seen this movie, so I won't go into detail about it, but opinions are split as to whether it was better or worse than the second one.
What I have seen is Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House, and it was despicable. This time, Kevin and the McCallisters are back, but not one cast member has returned. Everyone is younger, even though this movie was made ten years after the New York one. Harry is totally absent, and Marv is now played by French Stewart. (I think if Daniel Stern turns down a role, it's generally time to rethink the project.) Marv is accompanied by his wife, Vera, and they're trying to kidnap some rich kid who's staying with Kevin's new step-mom. Never watch this movie, under any circumstances, but if you happen to tune in at the right time, have a look at the hilarious scene where Kevin floods the step-mom's entire mansion.
Recently I was made aware that, this year, there is a Home Alone 5. I don't have the strength to watch it.
I know I've been pretty negative, but I promise I don't hate these movies. I hate the McCallisters, yes, but I enjoy the movies enough to watch them every year. Still, since they're all pretty fondly remembered (the critics' reviews notwithstanding), so I think it's safe to say that they're
1. It's wrong for parents to fly thousands of miles away from their unsupervised child two years in a row.
If they don't, that hellion will cause havoc in two major U.S. cities.
2. If you're an adult criminal in a children's movie, you stand no chance against a 10-year-old.
I always thought there should be a sequel where the (now elderly) burglars hit an adult Kevin with paint cans.
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