So after the perfectly serviceable part three comes 2002’s made-for-TV Home Alone 4. I’ve never heard anything about this film but part three was an unexpected delight so I figure how bad could it be? Well holy hell, this one is borderline blasphemous. Some dastardly money man has decided to just recast the entire crew from parts one and two and plonk Kevin McCallister into a brand new adventure where not once is he left at home alone. This dumb cash-in has none of the spirit, smarts or laughs of the previous three instalments.
Fair play to young Mike Weinberg as Kevin, who does a decent enough performance as a cheeky kid and isn't just doing a Macaulay Culkin impression. The real issue here is with the script which feels like a lazy "will this do?" kind of job.
Then you've got 3rd Rock From the Sun's French Stewart playing Marv, doing what I can only assume is a Daniel Stern impression if Stern never opened his eyes and sounded like a confused Jack Nicholson. It's weird and definitely not good. Harry doesn't even bother to show up and Marv now has an equally bumbling wife named Vera (Missi Pyle) as his partner-in-crime and they just happen to be robbing Kevin's dad's new house just as the kid visits for Christmas
To give the film its dues, they do go a little darker with plot. In this bizarre alternate reality, Kevin's mum and dad are divorced, with the pressure of having to take a dozen brats with them every time they go on vacation apparently finally having taken its toll. Mrs McCallister got the kids, while Dad moved in with his hotter, younger, mega-rich fiancee in a state-of-the-art, voice-activated 'Smart House', though he secretly misses his children.
Anyway, the baddies keep trying to rob the place and Kevin predictably foils them in a series of not very interesting ways. It all feels hopelessly drab, lifeless and cheap, though they clearly had a budget to play with, as the fancy cyborg mansion is huge and fancy and at one point gets completely flooded, to zero laughs. This one was apparently made as a feature-length pilot for a show that never materialised, though I cannot imagine how that could possibly work. Would he get left alone every week? Actually, going by this family's previous form that wouldn't be too surprising.
I think I laugh maybe once, when a bookcase falls on Marv's head - simple, old school physical comedy. But the film seems far more interested in showing us how cool the house is, while never using its space or gadgets to much effect. For all the house's technological bells and whistles, the set-pieces mostly just involve heavy or hot things hitting people. A laugh-free sequence involving a rotating bookshelf feels very Scooby Doo, some voice-recording pranks seem lazily half-inched from part two and an early Christmas present in the form of a remote controlled robot pet promises inventive thrills that never materialise.
It's all a big, unfunny mess that appears to have been edited by a child using 'Windows Movie Maker' and - I need to reiterate this - Kevin is never home alone at any point. Who thought this would make a great TV show? And how the hell does the house make it snow at the end?!? Rubbish.
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