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Avoid it like the plague

Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 7 December 2010 09:21

"I knew this was gonna be the best Christmas ever."


Talk about beating a dead horse! Though in the case of the Home Alone franchise, the horse is not merely dead but buried and decomposed as well. The first Home Alone was a pleasant, original Christmas comedy which launched the short-lived career of Macaulay Culkin. 1992's Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was an unoriginal follow-up which nonetheless retained a degree of charm and provided a few hearty laughs. A few years later, 1997's Home Alone 3 debuted without any of the original cast members or characters, and things began going downhill. To continue milking the ailing franchise, the made-for-TV Home Alone 4 arrived in 2002. Alas, the flame that once burned bright in the first two movies is long gone, and Home Alone 4 is a stale, flavourless, abominable feature which simultaneously resurrected and killed the Home Alone series. In comparison, Home Alone 3 is positively brilliant.



Strangely, this fourth film features the McCallister family as well as one of the two villains from the first two Home Alone films, but none of the original actors returned to reprise their roles. Home Alone 3 introduced a new set of characters, so why couldn't this film have followed suit rather than forcing the old characters upon us and forcing us to accept new faces? It's a useless distraction. Kevin is played by Mike Weinberg here, and the story is set at Christmastime once again. Kevin's parents are separated, with Kevin's father (Beghe) living in a mansion with his very wealthy new girlfriend. Following a typical evening in which Kevin is tormented by his siblings, Kevin wishes he was an only child, and runs off to spend Christmas with his dad. Soon, Kevin's old nemesis Marv (Stewart) and his ditzy wife Vera (Pyle) show up with plans to kidnap the Royal Prince who will be coming to stay in a few days. Naturally, nobody believes Kevin's stories about the criminals (not that Marv would be a fugitive, or anything...), and thus it's up to Kevin to thwart the bad guys. Again. Snore.


The timeline surrounding the Home Alone series seems to have been entirely ignored by those who were responsible for Home Alone 4. Kevin is the main character here, but he's become 9 years old again. Additionally, this is a Home Alone movie, but Kevin is never home alone at any point! Worse, nothing interesting happens in this film at all. Instead of something fresh or at least a Home Alone-style plot, Home Alone 4 wastes its time on a well-worn "other woman" plot. You know how it goes - Kevin's dad is dating some new woman, but she'll inevitably be unmasked (to Kevin and the audience first, and to everyone else last) as a heartless, shallow snob. Kevin's dad, meanwhile, is disillusioned, but he eventually remembers that he loves his ex-wife after all. The problem with this narrative machination is that Kevin's dad has an abrupt change of perspective despite nothing happening to trigger it. These characters are slaves to a plot that they were not meant for.



You may think I'm spending too much time analysing the plot when this is a kid's movie with a primary focus on slapstick comedy. However, the slapstick does not come close to making amends. From start to finish, Home Alone 4 is obnoxiously unfunny and uncreative. Clever traps were kept to an absolute minimum. Kevin had a high tech house at his disposal, but the best he could do was smack the bad guys in the face with a frying pan. You could count the number of Kevin-style incidents without running out of fingers. Additionally, the traps which are included here lack the inventiveness of the original Home Alone, and they're all signposted so blatantly that even the young target audience will see them coming a mile away. Simply put, the gags here are just dire, and the dialogue is unbelievably inane.


The awful acting doesn't help matters. Where Macaulay Culkin was cute and charismatic as Kevin in the previous Home Alone movies, newcomer Michael Weinberg comes off as fake and annoying in the same role. Weinberg is the most awkward, broad-gesturing, overreaching, dumb brat to disgrace the medium of cinema for a long time. He delivered his lines in the most obvious fashion imaginable, and as a result sounds like he's trying to act in a kindergarten drama play. Added to this is French Stewart's continuous overacting, and Missi Pyle's grating performance. Seriously, you'll want to put your head in the sand whenever these guys are on the screen. Daniel Stern was approached to reprise his role of Marv, but quickly declined the offer, calling the film "an insult, total garbage".



Kids might - keyword might - enjoy Home Alone 4, but everyone else should avoid it like the plague. It's boring, it's drastically short on comedy, and the acting is insufferable. If you begin watching the film knowing that it will be total shit, you may not be too dissatisfied. If you watch it in the hopes of it being as good as the original film, though, you'll be enormously disappointed.

0.5/10



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