In 1990 along came a little film titled "Home Alone." Featuring ten-year-old Macaulay Culkin -- whose biggest roles up to that time were small, but hilarious supporting characters (such as in "Uncle Buck") -- the film was a major hit with audiences. Written and produced by John Hughes ("Sixteen Candles," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") and helmed by writer turned director Chris Columbus ("Mrs. Doubtfire," "Nine Months"), the film went on to gross more than $500 million worldwide and sold umpteen millions of videocassettes. It also turned "Mac" Culkin into a worldwide star and spawned the inevitable 1992 sequel, "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" that reunited nearly everyone from the original film. Once again Mac thwarted the dimwitted thugs with more slapstick violence, this time out of the house and to the worldwide tune of nearly $300 million.
Obviously a serious franchise was building here, but the film makers 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 film makers moved on to other projects, leaving the "Home Alone" franchise in limbo. Never fear good readers, for Hollywood will always dig up an old hit if it thinks it smells blood -- or in this case, money.
Thus, the appearance now five years later of "Home Alone 3." It's not a sequel in the purest sense, for while the plot is the same, they have jettisoned the original cast for some fresh faces. Columbus and Culkin are gone, but Hughes has returned to write more domestic slapstick mayhem. Raja Gosnell, who formerly was an editor (on the first two films, among others), makes his directorial debut. And replacing Culkin in the role of precociously cute kid is Alex D. Linz, who played Michelle Pfeiffer's young son in "One Fine Day" (1996).
Not wanting to mess with what has been more than a three quarters of a billion-dollar success story, the film makers chose to return to the familiar settings of the suburbs. They also made sure that 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. Sound familiar? This film couldn't be much more of a carbon copy of the original if it tried. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the results are not the same.
For one thing, it's missing the charm and originality the first so exuberantly displayed. Culkin's absence is also a major problem. While many people quickly grew tired of his smug and obnoxious behavior, he was certainly the pivotal part of the series. While Linz is cute (perhaps too cute for the role) and recently won the Showest Convention Award for best young star of the year, he doesn't have that perfect, adorably obnoxious mix that served Macaulay Culkin so well in the original.
The film also suffers from the misguided notion that the success of the earlier films relied totally on their violent slapstick mayhem. While the first did bring back that cinematic commodity with a vengeance rarely seen since the Three Stooges, this film thinks that's all that's needed. One can trace this back to Hughes and some of his subsequent efforts, and it's trickled down into other kids films such as last year's "101 Dalmatians." Granted, the first film did have a great deal of that material, but at least is seemed freshly original for the time, something this film sorely lacks.
The first film also dealt with the parents trying to get back to their son which at least gave it a semblance of humanity. While all three films are ludicrous in how the child is left alone, at least the original only committed that fax pas once (albeit in a grand fashion). This film surprisingly seems more unbelievable in that the parents keep coming and going out of the house, leaving little Alex alone. Thus the parents are portrayed as absentminded (the father forgetting to wear his pants) or just thoughtless (the mother continually leaving her sick son at home). Similarly, the villains -- at first presented as high tech, very clever thieves -- come off as nothing more than buffoons. Of course we realize that's the whole point, but at least in the first films the characters played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern were known to be idiots right from the start.
Additionally, maybe there's something in the water in those affluent Chicago suburbs, and maybe it's a condition that only happens in the winter, but hey, the characters played by Culkin and now Linz are some resourceful kids who know how to take care of themselves. They're not only wizards at setting up quite effective booby traps, but this latest kid is also proficient in setting up a video surveillance system around the house. Of course this film intends solely to entertain kids (by whacking them over the head), and some may see these objections as being too critical, but if they're going to make such a film, they could at least not be so blatant about copying the original solely in an effort to make a quick buck.
Unfortunately for the kids, the first half is rather slow and not very involving for them. Consequently, the fidget factor grew steadily among the kids at our screening. Of course the payoff finally arrives in the second half, all in the form of slapstick humor and a talking parrot (that makes comments on what's happening: "Let the party begin," "Let's get ready to rumble," etc...), and the kids seemed to enjoy the mayhem and the film's increasingly overall ridiculous nature. There is some fun music from the fifties early on, but that quickly segues into some current, mediocre music that serves no purpose other than hopefully to sell some more copies of the soundtrack.
On a side trivia note, it's interesting to see that Haviland Morris (the mother) played the stuck up high school senior in Hughes' earlier film, "Sixteen Candles" (the one Anthony Michael Hall had a crush on). Talk about coming full circle. Anyway, today's kids won't even know about that film, or probably even care. They'll just want to see ever more slapstick mayhem once it gets cranked up in this film. This feature fully delivers that, but it's too bad the film makers didn't try to do anything but regurgitate the old formula. Thus, we give "Home Alone 3" just a 3 out of 10.