Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House

“Home Alone 4” might be the strangest movie yet to have been filmed in Capetown, South Africa. I’m not joking here. The budget to this film was apparently so low that the only place that they could find to film was in South Africa. You might be watching this film and continuously find yourself looking in the background to see if there is anything that gives it away that this is in South Africa. This is an effort to find anything on a plot from a plot that is sick, pompous and silly.

I know that I considered “Home Alone 3” an average sequel, seeing how there were good things in it, but acknowledging that it is flawed. That is nothing compared to what “Home Alone 4” has to deal with. “Home Alone 3” focused on a completely different family in a similar looking Chicago suburb (probably trying to make this family the main focus), this one brings us back to Kevin and his family, who strangely is the same age as the first movie. In this 2002 TV movie, Kevin is played by Mark Weinberg, who doesn’t have the same charm that Culkin had. He’s actually somewhat creepy. He talks all of the time, and his dialogue is nothing more than those tacky kid lines like, “I knew this was gonna be the best Christmas ever.” He’s not a good child actor in Hollywood.

The plot involves Kevin spending his Christmas Eve with his dad’s girlfriend Natalie, played by Joanna Going. His parents (Jason Beghe and Clare Carey) are separated, which leads to a sub-plot that has some cliché about the importance of your family. That’s when Kevin isn’t setting up traps for the burglars. Not satisfied with the family plot, there has to be (again) a series of jokes of the burglars and the kid has to stop them by setting up traps that could only be done with the help of the special effects people.

The burglars this time are Marv and his wife Vera. Marv was well-known to be played by Daniel Stern, and he was offered to reprise the role, but he refused because he called this “an insult, total garbage.” Who is his replacement in this film? How about the cast member from the sitcom “3^rd Rock from the Sun,” French Stewart. I’m going to be honest, French Stewart doesn’t get good roles and he is a pain to sit through. Especially in this film because he just does a bad impression of Daniel Stern. There are some acts you can’t get, and others you just don’t want to. Like I said, French Stewart just hurts you throughout this film. What you are watching is a good comedian trying to imitate another good comedian. Stewart twists and turns his voice and body language in such a weird and disgusting way that you sit there wondering about the man’s condition. Then you realize this is his performance.

Marv wants to kidnap Kevin for reasons I don’t think they ever made clear. He and Vera, played by Missi Pyle, break into Natalie’s house, which is a house that you could see in “The Jetsons” cartoon because everything is voice activated. It’s not much of a stretch of how the third act is set – lots of hits to the head and that weird pratfall where people slip, fly up in the air, and land on their backs. Were they trying to pull a “Peanuts” stunt here? Jerry Roberts said in his review, “Knowing that this movie takes place in Chicago, but filmed in South Africa, I kept hoping that the SAP would bust down the door and drag the crooks off to who-knows-where.”

Now the first “Home Alone” was one of the best comedies and beloved Christmas specials, which is also one of my favorites. Because of Culkin, it became really successful, but this isn’t an idea that anyone could really build on. The sequels based on that idea seemed more like a spoof and an imitation.

Overall, I rate this film with a 1. Stay tuned tomorrow when I finish off my reviews of the “Home Alone franchise” when I talk about last year’s made-for-television sequel, which will hopefully be the last. Then, I can get back to reviewing probably some classics in my 25 days of Christmas reviews.