Home Alone Pentalogy

Home Alone is the first film I ever saw in theatres. This is probably why I’ve always thought of it as a nostalgia movie, if not the nostalgia movie. Admittedly, it’s no masterpiece. If I saw Home Alone for the first time in my twenties or thirties, I probably wouldn't remember it so well. But I didn’t see it for the first time in my twenties or thirties, I saw it at five, and saw the sequel two or three years after (an eternity for a preteen), so both movies have imprinted themselves into my consciousness, the good leaving a firmer impression than the bad. When I got the whole box set for Christmas last year, I re-watched the first two with my family and I enjoyed the hell out of them. I laughed a lot harder at the Angels With Even Filthier Souls scene in Home Alone 2 than I had laughed for a long time. Then, with the back half of the series already in my possession, I eventually decided, what the heck, I'd watch them too, just to see if they were as bad as I had feared.

Home Alone

The first entry, and the most iconic, is also arguably the best. I remember that there was a pretty big backlash against Macaulay Culkin at the time (as there is against any child actor), but I honestly think that he does a good job at hitting that right mix of fear and courage.

And John Hughes (best known for his teen movies, but equally adept with children and grown-ups) does an excellent job at writing the tension between Kevin and his family. Yes, Kevin is a brat. But then so are all the other kids in the family--not to mention Uncle Frank--they're just better at hiding it. Hughes could have sided entirely with or wholly against Kevin, but instead he wrote him as a decent kid who needs to grow, and the adult McCallisters, loving though they are, as ignorant of their son's lot. 

Incidentally, although Hughes was already a successful director at the time, he didn't direct this movie; that honour goes to Christopher Columbus, who had previously written--but not directed--such classics as Gremlins and The Goonies, and would later go on to direct--but not write--the first two Harry Potter movies.

Of course, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are irreplaceable as the burglars and, eventually, would-be murderers, Harry and Marv. Re-watching the movie as an adult, I still think that their physical comedy is hilarious, but they can be horrifying when they need to. (Turns out that seeing an eight-year-old being threatened by two adults is more frightening when you are an adult yourself!)

These men are geniuses.

I was also pleasantly surprised to remember how deep Harry and Marv's characterization actually is. At first, they're surprisingly realistic burglars, more selfish than outright malicious. When they almost run over Kevin, they’re visibly shaken at the thought that they almost killed someone. But their hardships in the McCallister house break them, and before long they're talking about torturing and disfiguring an eight-year-old. We aren't going to get that much character development from many of the villains in the other Home Alone movies.

There's also the subplot of Old Man Marley, Kevin's creepy neighbour (played by Roberts Blossom) who reaches out to and befriends Kevin, and who in turn Kevin later inspires to reunite with his own estranged son. I've read online in a few places that this character was Columbus' idea, because he wanted to add more heart to the story. Whether this was necessary is a matter of opinion--I thought that Mrs. McCallister added enough pathos--but his story does fit very nicely into the larger narrative about family, and the scene at the end, when he saves Kevin from the Wet Bandits, helps emphasize that the movie's theme (the importance of friends and family) and Kevin's personal growth (which sees him becoming less reliant on others) are not mutually exclusive.

The movie's biggest problems are probably that it isn't realistic, and the protagonist isn't all that moral. Much has been said on how lethal most of Kevin's traps would actually be, and legion have argued that the amount of pain Kevin puts the Wet Bandits through would be a better fit for a horror movie. But then every work of art and entertainment has both its good points and its bad points, and every audience member is going to have their own taste insofar as which aspects of a movie to ignore and which ones to embrace. I like the comedy, and I don't mind the breaks from reality, so I like the movie. Nostalgia? Maybe. So what?

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Home Alone 2 (in relation to the first movie) reminds me of Twilight Princess (in relation to Ocarina of Time); both are improvements, but ride so blatantly on their parent's coattails that it’s hard to care. The call-backs are so numerous that I can't tell if they're homages or just symptoms of creative constipation.

There are many things to like here. All of New York is a more interesting setting than a single house, and some of the scenes at the Plaza Hotel are, in my opinion, the funniest in the series.

Kevin McCalister, home alone in a well-staffed hotel.

On the other hand, this movie hits mostly the same beats as the first: Kevin fights with his parents, gets separated, and later reunites with his mom. There's also another subplot about the kid befriending a frightening outcast, giving them sage life advice, and then being saved by them from the crooks. All of the movies have some variant on this plot point, though most of the sequels mix it up a bit more than this one does. The Pigeon Lady (unnamed; played by Brenda Fricker) is by far the most direct knockoff of the first movie's Old Man Marley--the only notable twist being that, this time around, Kevin makes the effort to start a conversation with her, instead of her initiating the conversation with Kevin. It's nice to see how much Kevin has grown since the first movie, and The Pigeon Lady is, in terms of both writing and acting, probably the best variant on this archetype. But there's no arguing the lack of originality.

There are a few other issues which, like those of the first movie, are fairly glaring, but don't bother me all that much: some of the coincidences (most notably Kevin winding up in New York at the same time as Harry and Marv) are ridiculous, Harry and Marv have degenerated into cartoon villains, and Kevin has somehow aged two years in only 365 days. But these things only really hurt the second in relation to the first; if this were a standalone picture, I think it would be as good as the original, if not better.

Home Alone 3

If 2 is more of the same, but better, then 3 is a watered-down version. The first two movies are about more than just the slapstick break-in at then end; they're about a young, somewhat bratty child, who fights with his family, then must fend without them. The second movie didn't live up to the name, but at least matched the spirit. The third movie does not--Alex Pruitt is home and alone, thanks to a case of the chickenpox, but only the latter while his parents are at work. (In fact, from here on out, the parents will leave their kids alone for only briefer periods of time and across much smaller geographic distances.) Alex doesn't get along with his siblings, but is much closer with his parents, so on the whole there is less internal conflict. The only real hostilities occurs when Alex is wrongfully accused of making false calls to the police, and even that doesn't add that much to the drama--it's mostly just there to explain why he doesn't phone the cops for the climax.

None of which would be a problem, if the older story was replaced by a more (or equally) interesting one. But it wasn't; instead, Home Alone 3 focuses all its energy on a story about a group of spies searching for a valuable chip hidden inside Alex's toy car. The bad guys have doubled in number and presumably grown in training and skill, though this does little to aid them in their fight against a child. And, considering one of these spies is actually dumb enough to try walking down a set of stairs, with a pair of toy trucks glued to his feet, I'd have to say that even Marv would have the advantage against them in a contest of the brains.

Now with computer chips.

As an interesting side-note, this movie starts the trend of giving each criminal group a female member. To the franchise`s credit, these ladies are always just as dumb as their male counterparts, and always carry their weight in the slapstick department, so they never feel tacked-on.

On the whole, the spies are not as memorable as Pesci or Stern, but the slapstick is of comparable quality, and the traps are as clever and as brutal as ever. One bad guy gets a running lawn mower dropped on his face and escapes with but a few scratches--a perfect example of what this series is all about.

Okay, I’ll admit that I enjoyed the third movie more than I was expecting, but nowhere near as much as the first two. Alex isn’t as interesting a character as Kevin, the quartet of spies lack Harry and Marv’s Wile E. Coyote-esque charm, and the emotional centre was replaced by a silly and unthrilling spy story.

Home Alone 4

The fourth entry is probably the worst in the series. Alex is gone, replaced by someone named Kevin McCallister (played by Mike Weinberg). Although this Kevin is now nine, has only two siblings, and is far less of a brat, he does have a couple of similarities to the original Kevin, including a history of being left alone to fend off burglars named Harry and Marv. But the call-backs and the inconsistencies seem to be playing tug-of-war, trying to force this movie into the realm of a sequel or a reboot without really letting it rest comfortably in either. Frankly, this movie probably would have made more sense as a direct sequel to Home Alone 3--the kid's personality, home life, and age would make more sense if this were Alex rather than Kevin. It even reuses the "parents don't believe the kid about the burglars so he had better find some heavy stuff to drop on people" plot point, in what I like to think of as a call-back the the second movie's shameless recycling of its predecessor.

Selfies, circa 2002.

Fortunately, this movie does add a touch of family drama: Kevin's parents are now separated, and his dad is once again engaged. This is mostly an excuse for Kevin to stay with his dad (played by Jason Beghe) and his new girlfriend (Natalie, played by Joanna Going) in their hi-tech mansion, but the movie does at least try to get whatever emotion it can out of this scenario. Of course, after portraying Natalie as a kind and charitable woman throughout most of its story, the movie has her turn into a wicked stepmom near the end, just so that we don't feel so bad when Kevin's dad inevitably dumps her and goes back to his first wife. (Though to be fair to Natalie, her allegedly bitchy attitude towards Kevin is actually kind of justified when you try to see things from her perspective. Granted, Kevin isn't really responsible for what happens, but she had every reason to assume he was engaged in the sort of behaviour that usually lands kids in military school, or at least on a trashy talk-show.)

Interestingly, only one of the two burglars reappears, albeit now played by French Stewart. He’s called Marv, but dresses like Harry and acts like a mixture between the two. (My headcanon is that Marv killed Harry for leadership of the gang, and is now trying to become Harry in penance.)

The other crook, BTW, is Marv's wife, Vera, played by Missi Pyle. In my opinion, she makes a better criminal (or at least a better Home Alone criminal) than Stewart does. Both portray their characters as dumb, but Vera comes across as crazy-dumb. I couldn't picture this version of Marv doing anything to Kevin, but Vera seems just drugged-out enough to actually bite off a nine-year-old`s fingers if given the chance.

Marv and Vera's plan is not to burglarize the house this time. The previous crooks wanted to steal a computer chip; these ones want to kidnap a young prince whose family will be staying with Natalie. Interestingly, although the prince doesn't appear until the end of the movie, Kevin is never mistaken for him, even though that would be the most obvious (and thus the worst) choice. (And, yes, I know that it would make no sense if Marv, who knows Kevin, had mistaken him for the prince. Trust me, if they had done that, it would not be the worst mistake in this movie.)

I don't want to give away too much of the "Old Man Marley" character in this instalment, except to say that the life-changing advice comes across as far too rushed, preachy, and tacked-on. The first two movies gave us touching, beautiful scenes to lead up to and justify such a pep-talk; this one is just kinda there because Home Alone.

As noted, the “trap” segment--the bread and butter of any Home Alone movie--is complete crap this time around. Since this film is set in a “smart house” (a gimmick used to better effect in the Home Alone video game on the Genesis, I might add) Kevin relies on manipulating the built-in gadgets and miscellaneous toys more than any actual traps. The end results, though still painful, lack the invention and imagination of the predecessors. (A kid flying a toy airplane into a dude`s crotch is okay for America`s Funniest Home Videos, but not Home Alone.)

Unsurprisingly, this is the first Home Alone movie that was not written by John Hughes, and the first made for the direct-to-video market.

Home Alone: The Holiday Heist

After 4, things could only go uphill. The Holiday Heist is still not on the same level as the Columbus/Hughes/Culkin entries, but, in some ways, I thought it was an improvement over the third and fourth ones. For one thing, the Kevin figure this time around, Finn Baxter (played by Christian Martyn) is actually a flawed character. Instead of the misunderstood nice kid from three and four, he’s portrayed as a video game-addicted loner who, throughout the movie, learns to leave his shell, make friends, and grow as a person. So, although he doesn't feel like a complete knockoff of Kevin, he does still come across as a decent kid who needs to grow.

This movie was able to attract some top-name actors. Malcolm McDowell plays the leader of the criminals. His obnoxious but charmingly British portrayal may actually equal Stern's manchild and Pesci’s hothead. He also has a more sympathetic motivation than any of the other criminals--there's a famous painting of his grandmother (supposedly painted by artist Edvard Munch, whose painting The Scream inspired the original movie's most iconic scene) that he wants to steal. But since he doesn't try asking for or buying the damn thing first--theft being the first and best choice for his sort--he doesn't come across as so sympathetic that you want him to win (unless you're the sort of person who always roots for the villains).

On the downside, it’s hard not to feel like this is a shell of what Home Alone once was. Not only is Finn much older than Kevin or Alex (Martyn was about 12 during filming), but he’s not even alone-- his teenage sister, Alexis (played by then 17-year-old Jodelle Ferland) is there too, albeit trapped in the basement. Once again, the parents didn’t accidentally leave the kids alone while making a trip out of the city--they just got snowed in at a Christmas party. And, though I might just be biased on this last point, I kinda think that a shy kid who plays too many video games--although a serious enough problem when it escalates to Finn's level--is far less interesting than a kid who is constantly fighting with everyone in his family, then gets left alone at home or in New York.

You have no idea how much the Wet Bandits envy this guy right now.

The traps here are not as simple as those in 4, but they're less excruciating than ever. When you see a Home Alone movie using a dumbbell, you expect it to fall on someone--not roll into their shins and trip them. Yes, Harry and Marv tripped, and a lot. But their slapstick mixed very painful gags with sorta painful ones; here, the cap is much lower, and merely uncomfortable inconveniences on the "covered in yucky stuff" variety much more common. I guess that a lot of people thought the other four movies made the violence more brutal than funny, but I really do think that downgrading the slapstick from The Three Stooges to something more closely resembling Family Matters hurt the movie's overall appeal. I know that sounds sadistic, but I like the early instalments' brutality partly because it is so over-the-top that it never feels real, and a series of minor inconveniences just doesn't feel like a satisfying line of defence. Holiday Heist is like watching a slasher movie about a guy that sneaks into people's houses at night, wakes them from their slumber with a cry of "boo!" then flees. I'm sure it would be very scary in real-life, but that's not what I came for.

I will not delude myself into thinking that Home Alone is a perfect movie. And, although I have a soft spot for the second, I won’t pretend that it was a masterpiece, either. But there are a few things about the first two films that stand out. The conflict between the smart-mouthed Kevin and his slightly insensitive family is one and, yes, the cruelty of the traps is another. But, above all else, there’s the sense that Kevin is truly alone. These aren’t movies about a kid being alone with burglars prowling through the bushes for twenty minutes, they’re movies about a kid being alone for days at a time, about the family's fear for his safety, and about how each react to the nightmare. It's an inherently terrifying and heartrending story, and the first two movies never skimmed over that. Harry and Marv are a nice bit of slapstick for the climax, but worked best as the dessert at the end of a complete meal. The later movies focus so much on the cake that they under-cook the chicken, and the end result is not as filling.