2006’s Unaccompanied Minors from director Paul Feig is a largely forgotten kid’s comedy that’s basically Home Alone meets The Breakfast Club in an airport. This one is squarely aimed at children and likely won’t be all that funny for anyone outside of the Disney Channel ‘tween’ demographic but it’s enjoyable enough and has a lot of heart. It was a total flop at the time, likely robbing each of its likeable young stars of a Culkin-esque mega career but does have a small but dedicated cult following, likely due to repeated screenings on cable. Again, I find it hard to comprehend how this harmless little comedy has wound up on so many ‘worst ever’ lists.
It is a fairly middling effort about a gang of spunky, spirited kids stuck, parentless in a Chicago airport at Christmas who run rings around security and have festive fun after all flights get grounded. Tyrannical airport security chief Lewis Black wants to keep all the ‘U.M.s’ in a holding area until things get sorted but our feisty gang decide ‘screw that’ and sneak out for some mildly exciting, inoffensive misadventures.
Main kid Spencer (Dyllan Christopher) is an amiable, curly-haired Jesse Eisenberg-type - capable and intelligent but doomed to be an outcast. Naturally, he develops a crush on uber-confident rich kid Grace (Gia Mantegna) who turns out to be more complex and likeable than anyone first suspects. Everybody Hates Chris star Tyler James William is on show-stealing form as prissy, eccentric Charlie whose fragility masks a killer gift for physical comedy. Bad Santa’s Brett Kelly brings the weird as oddball, overweight reject ‘Beef’ Timothy, while Quinn Shepherd doesn’t get much room to breathe as standard tomboy Donna.
The gang makes an unlikely ally in Wilmer Valderama’s sweet but dull airport security guy who feels his boss is being too hard on them. The film is also notable for being stuffed with cameos from actors and comedians who would all go on to do very well, like B.J. Novak, Rob Corddry, Mindy Calling, Rob Riggle and more.
There’s a few decent PG laughs as the kids rampage through bits of the airport you never normally get to see, like the unclaimed baggage area. Elsewhere, they sled through the snow in a canoe and pull some clever Great Escape type shenanigans to sneak out.
It’s festively sweet too, with the plot revolving around Spencer’s dedication to get back to his kid sister to give her the Christmas she deserves. It’s underwhelming but hard to totally dislike. It’s worth a watch even just for the bit where Williams surprises everyone, dancing like a lunatic to an old eight-track of swing music. The film could definitely do with more stuff like that and would undoubtedly have benefitted from taking more anarchic risks. Home Alone became the stuff of legend for pushing the boundaries of what you could do in a family film. This one? Not so much.
Comentarios