By the time 1994’s Richie Rich had come around, Macaulay Culkin had grown tired of acting and packed it in for a bit, leading movie fans to assume that this spelled the end of the Home Alone franchise. Not so. By Christmas 1997, the Hollywood money men had crunched the numbers and decided that time was ripe to revive this hugely profitable ‘intellectual property’, with or without their talismanic child star. And so it was that the world got director Raja Gosnell’s Home Alone 3, whether we were ready for it or not.
I avoided this like the plague for years after the critics and public alike savaged it, basically for not starring Culkin. But 24 years later, here we are. In a strange turn of events, I watch this one in the back seat of a car driving up the M6 after a day trip to Alton Towers and, y’know what? I really, truthfully enjoy it. I don’t get where a lot of the hate has come from, finding this to be full of laughs and action, lower on the schmaltz than its predecessors and a film really trying to do its own thing.
This time, our pre-pubescent hero is Alex (Alex D. Linz), stuck at home (alone) with the chicken pox and forced to protect the neighbourhood from international super-thief spy-type people. It’s a little more kiddie-friendly but respects our expectation to see these baddies get torn up and humiliated. John Hughes returns as screenwriter, taking the time and care to flesh out the premise, while allowing the characters a little room to breathe.
I’m tickled to discover this is one of the earliest appearances of then-13-year-old Scarlett Johansso who here plays Alex’s bitching older sister Molly. She doesn’t really get much to do, but still leaves an impression with her acerbic putdowns, a hint of things to come.
The stakes are much higher here, as the Euro-baddies have pinched a valuable microchip that has something to do with missiles. Due to an airport baggage mishap, the chip – now hidden in a toy remote controlled car – ends up with Alex in snowy Chicago, just as he comes down ill. Unavoidable work commitments for his mum and dad mean that Alex is – you guessed it – left home alone. It’s a slightly more believable premise this time, with the kid being left with a beeper, emergency phone numbers etc and a neighbour allegedly keeping watch. There’s no hint of ‘wish magic’ this time, though Alex does have a trained pet rat and a talking parrot to aid him when the villains come calling, so it’s still silly.
It’s established that the kid is some sort of child genius, his bedroom filled with cute little ‘Rube Goldberg’ chain reaction gadget machines, making it slightly more believable when he’s able to set up a series of devious traps. The film doesn’t skimp on the violence but things are a little more cartoonish and less evidently life-threatening this time. Baddies are whacked with weights, they’re frozen, electrocuted, punched, pummelled, thrown from windows and, in a standout hilarious prank, fall right through a trampoline into an iced-over swimming pool.
Though this Culkin-less effort is fun and imaginative, the baddies are not particularly memorable but it’s still immensely gratifying to see them get pummelled. This is a perfectly enjoyable and well above average family film and I recommend any sceptics watch it some time. It has certainly livened up my long, long sit in an M6 traffic jam, Sigh.
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