For many people, a familiar pastime in the weeks leading up to major winter holidays is gathering with family members and watching holiday movies, be they in a theater or on television. While vaccines are more widely available now than they were last year, for some plans still remain the same this holiday season, unsure about going to movie theaters. However, this shouldn’t stop us from enjoying holiday movies with friends and family.
During the month of December, therefore, the Falls Free Press will reprise “The 12 Films of Christmas,” focusing on new holiday movies for the year 2021—a year that can still do with plenty of spirit. We will review each film, whether naughty or nice, and let you know where to watch it.
Long ago, back in 1989, up and coming film director Chris Columbus was slated to direct the next film in the Nation Lampoon’s Vacation series, Christmas Vacation. Columbus loved Christmas and wanted to create a holiday comedy, making this film a dream job. It was fate, however, that he would clash with star of the film, Chevy Chase, and therefore leave the film for better offers. To the luck of all, in addition to writing Christmas Vacation, John Hughes had another project up his sleeve which proved to be Columbus’s heavy-hitting Christmas comedy.
Home Alone introduced the world to Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, an eight-year-old troublemaker who wanted his own space and time away from his large extended family, all of whom were staying at his home in preparation for a trip to Paris. Kevin gets his wish when he is forgotten at home, leaving him two days of peace and enjoyment until he discovers a couple of robbers trying to break into his home, whom he entraps with a barrage of traps.
A hit at the box office, the film received a sequel the following year, this time stranding Kevin at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Despite the popularity, however, the series did not fare well after the initial films. John Hughes wrote and produced a third film without Columbus’ direction, starring Alex D. Linz as Alex Pruitt, a different eight-year-old who inadvertently receives a remote-control car containing a secret microchip and must defend his home against dimwitted spies hired by Korean terrorists to retrieve the chip. After failing to entice audiences, the series continued over time without Hughes, attempting to use new and old characters to drive nostalgia for the original, but each received poor reception as made-for-TV movies.
This includes the newest production, Home Sweet Home Alone.
When Max (played by Archie Yates) is in need of a toilet, his mother (Aisling Bea) sneaks into an open house showing. While there, they get into a discussion with one of the homeowners, Jeff (Rob Delaney) about a box of his grandmother’s antique malformed dolls, which could be worth thousands of dollars each. For Jeff and his wife Pam (played by The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s Ellie Kemper), this money could save them from selling the home. Unfortunately for them, the most expensive doll goes missing, and they suspect Max stole it.
Meanwhile, Max falls asleep where nobody can find him, and family members believe he boarded one of their two mismatched flights to Tokyo. It may already seem strange that with the abundance of cell phones nobody bothers to use this to call or track a missing child during this exchange, but even more bizarre is that when the couple break into Max’s home, he believes they intend to kidnap and sell him to a senior center. In retribution, he strings together a series of traps, many stolen from the original film, turning the tables of who-kills-whom. Unlike the “wet bandits,” who sought to end Kevin’s life after his initial trick, this couple are only after a doll that neither have actually seen inside the home. Despite each weapon thrown at them, their only concerns are for the doll and ensuring nobody gets hurt.
Although the story includes ideas pulled from the original Hughes films, the thirty years difference has created multiple problems for both. Technology has certainly improved, and there is no excuse for not being able to find a missing child when everybody has a tracker attached to them via their devices. Max even inadvertently tricks the robbers into believing an older German woman is in the house due to a change in language on the home’s smart device.
Unlike children’s films in the 1980s and 1990s, movies currently produced do not push for the same level of scariness, particularly looking at the epic battle between Kevin and the intruders, which went a level past that of Die Hard. At no point in HSHA are audiences scared for the characters, let alone worried about themselves. For Max, while he does everything he can to avoid being kidnapped, his biggest concern is that if the police catch him home alone, his mother might be arrested for abandonment.
In an attempt to pull nostalgia into a movie already lacking much of anything else, Devin Ratray returns at Buzz McCallister, who is now a police officer, taking calls from the local popular security system owned by his family (a key answer to the ageless question about how his family owned such a large home). Buzz references his family’s accidental abandonment of Kevin when they were children; by acknowledging these events, however, the story’s free use of parts of the original movie and complete abandonment of all other basic Home Alone ideals become even more confusing.
Home Sweet Home Alone is not a John Hughes movie, and the story is so far from a decent Christmas comedy that there is no reason for Chris Columbus to have been in a nearby city. For the simple nostalgia of Home Alone, watch Home Alone. Want more? Watch Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Home Sweet Home Alone is available to stream on Disney+.
