Back in 1990, writer/producer John Hughes ("Sixteen Candles," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") and director Chris Columbus ("Mrs. Doubtfire," "Nine Months") unleashed a pint-sized actor onto unsuspecting moviegoing audiences with the comedy "Home Alone" and ended up rewriting the way to make "family" films. In doing so, they also turned one Macaulay Culkin into a child superstar of the likes the world hadn’t seen since Shirley Temple.
Before this film, few knew of the ten-year-old Culkin, particularly since his biggest roles up to that time were some small, but hilarious supporting characters, such as in "Uncle Buck" (with John Candy). After the first "Home Alone" went on to gross more than half a billion dollars around the globe and sell umpteen millions of videocassettes, everyone knew who he was.
Not wanting to ruin a good thing, the filmmakers and cast -- including, of course, the new multimillionaire Culkin -- reunited in 1992 for the sequel, "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York." The epitome of redundancy, the film essentially told the same story (accidentally isolated kid thwarts the efforts of two dimwitted, petty thieves via slapstick humor while befriending an initially scary looking older person) in an unimaginative way. Audiences didn’t seem to mind, however, and the film racked up a worldwide gross of nearly $300 million.
Obviously a serious franchise was building here, but the filmmakers found themselves with quite the dilemma. Culkin had grown up into a teenager, as well as an expensive commodity with reported salaries nearing the $10 million mark. Thus, while Mac tried to spread his wings dramatically, and figure out what his family did with all of his money, the filmmakers moved on to other projects, leaving the "Home Alone" franchise in limbo.
Nonetheless, Hollywood always has a knack for digging up old hits if it thinks it smells blood -- or in this case, money -- and thus the second sequel, imaginatively titled "Home Alone 3" hit theaters in late 1997. In reality, it wasn’t a sequel in the purest sense, for while the plot was essentially the same, the original cast was jettisoned for some fresh faces. Although Hughes returned to write some more slapstick mayhem, the absence of both director Columbus and star Culkin hurt the film. The result? A worldwide gross of less than $50 million.
Of course it didn’t help that by the time the third film rolled around the formula was already worn out (the new, young kid is left home alone to thwart the criminal efforts of some thugs -- this time in the form of international terrorists -- while being afraid of an old and seemingly cranky neighbor) or that this installment was missing the charm and originality the first so exuberantly displayed.
Viewed in chronological order and within the a short amount of time, only the first film is really worth watching (particularly since the 2nd and 3rd simply retread the characters and/or basic plot). By now the anti-Culkin feelings have passed onto other overexposed and overpaid performers and thus one can watch the film somewhat in line with how it was originally accepted.
Although it’s not a great film by any means, it does have a certain charm to it, some funny moments and entertaining performances by the young Culkin as well as Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as the bumbling criminals. Despite causing a slew of other films to imitate the slapstick style comedy/violence, the material here is a fun throwback to the stuff the Three Stooges once used to entertain audiences.
As such, kids and adults alike should at least find some parts of the original film to be enjoyable. While hardcore "Home Alone" fans may enjoy watching the 2nd and 3rd installments, most viewers will probably find them to be unimaginative "rip-offs" of the original and not worth the time needed to watch them.
As far as the DVD set itself, the older films show a bit of wear and tear and suffer from some mild visual problems, but are decent enough, while the audio delivers what’s expected of it. Considering that this is meant to be a "collector’s series," however, the supplemental materials -- the theatrical trailers and some brief textual biographical information on the 3rd disc -- are considerably lacking (where’s the running audio commentary by Hughes and/or Columbus?).