Home Sweet Home Alone

Home Sweet Home Alone
Starring Archie Yates, Rob Delaney, Ellie Kemper, Aisling Bea
Directed by Dan Mazer

On November 16, 1990 (one day before my tenth birthday), "Home Alone" hit theaters and instantly became a Christmas classic. The film centered on young Kevin McAllister - played by Macaluay Culkin in his young career-defining role - who is accidentally left home alone while the rest of his large family went on Christmas vacation. He soon finds being left home alone has its drawbacks, most notably when two bumbling burglars try to break in, resulting in numerous hilarious slapstick hijinks as Kevin booby-traps the house that the burglars fall into time and again. It's maintained its status as one of the best family films for Christmas, along with it's sequel, but not so much the three direct-to-DVD sequels that came after, none of which featured Kevin McCallister (but the third did introduce the world to Scarlett Johansson, so there's that). For some insane reason, some higher ups decided that it was time for a reboot, and "Home Sweet Home Alone" was born - and much like how its young character Max referred to Jeff as "Frankenstein," this is actually Frankenstein's Monster, a soulless concoction of what made "Home Alone" a classic, but leaving out the magic that makes it so endearing.

Max Mercer (Archie Yates) and his mother Carol (Aisling Bea) stop off at the open house of Jeff (Rob Delaney) and Pam (Ellie Kemper) McKenzie's, who are selling their house because Jeff lost his job and can't afford to live there anymore. Max finds Jeff going through a box of old dolls, and leaves. Later, Jeff is searching online and finds that one of the dolls is worth $200,000, but when he goes back to retrieve it, he finds it missing. Thinking Max stole the doll, he and Pam devise a plan to get it back.

Meanwhile, Max is left home alone when his large family leaves for Tokyo for Christmas vacation using different Ubers and flights, and at first he enjoys the solitude that was missing when the house was a circus of screams and running kids. Soon, though, things turn sad and Max misses his mother, but is fearful of reaching out because he's afraid they'll get in trouble for leaving him home alone. Then he sees Jeff and Pam trying to break in, and overhears something about them stealing "the boy" and getting $200,000 for him, and he thinks they're trying to kidnap him, so he concocts a Rube Goldberg-style trap system to deter his kidnapping, leading to misunderstandings and irreverent slapstick comedy.

What made "Home Alone" such a classic is the fact that there were clearly obvious lines that were drawn between who was good and who was bad, and seeing the bad guys get their comeuppance time and again was hilarious, especially due to the excellent slapstick comedy performed by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as they endured the continual tortures Kevin threw at them. They were the bad guys, the ones who wanted to cause harm, so seeing them receive harm was cosmic justice in a funny sort of way, but that's not the case with "Home Sweet Home Alone." Here, there are no bad guys, just a lot of misunderstandings that could've been easily resolved with some simple dialogue - but then again that wouldn't make for a "Home Alone" movie. Instead, we have to endure a nice, decent married couple coming under physical torture from a snooty, egotistical, stuck-up rich kid before we realize that he, too, is suffering - but more from first world problems than anything else. Seeing as there's no bad guy, the stuff that Jeff and Pam go through isn't as funny as it is cringy, and any hilarity is subdued due to the fact that they didn't deserve what they were getting - even if they didn't think things all the way through.

Archie Yates emerged on the big screen in Taika Waititi's excellent "JoJo Rabbit," but here he's extremely lowered his acting prowess to a mere shell of a character. As Max, he plays off the rich kid role very well, but in a snooty, snobby way that doesn't make him the least bit appealing. I'd want to beat the kid up and he didn't even do anything to me. He doesn't exude any acting ability that made Kevin such an indelible character, but instead just comes off wooden, plain, and unmemorable. Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper, on the other hand, really try their hardest to make Jeff and Pam likeable and relatable, and pull off a decent job despite their very tough limitations. They're loving, caring parents who go at things the completely wrong way, and the pain they receive isn't at all justified (seriously, at least Kevin's traps were mostly innocent, where some of Max's traps could've killed them). The slapstick here is still funny, but seeing as they're not the bad guys, it's hard to laugh at the pain they receive just because they weren't smart enough to just wait for the family to come back from vacation and calmly tell them about the doll.

Proving how soulless the "Home Alone" franchise can go, "Home Sweet Home Alone" is basically a re-hash of the original but featuring a sympathetic couple as the "villains" which doesn't make for a great comedy movie, but a sadly tragic one.

The Score: D-