Home Alone: The Holiday Heist

Alright the wait is over. It is now time to talk about the 2012 abomination made-for-television sequel, “Home Alone: The Holiday Heist.” This was made for ABC Family’s 25 day countdown to Christmas. And boy is this film a mess. By the time you get to home video releases of a fourth sequel to a very beloved Christmas special, your hopes for a good movie has been lowered a whole lot. In fact, when you look at the title, the first two words should be ignored and not considered as part of the series.

I don’t mean to bash on this film a lot. Instead, it’s actually a far out there sequel to the original “Home Alone,” a classic Christmas special that doesn’t age as years go. Heck, it doesn’t even make it anywhere as good as “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”

Instead, “Home Alone: The Holiday Heist” is one of those horrible TV movies that are only meant to be aired on ABC or one of those channels which shows god-awful sequels.

The story revolves around two kids, Finn (Christian Martyn) and Alexis Baxter (Jodelle Ferland) who has just recently moved with their parents from California to Maine right before Christmas. As kids do, they are not happy that they have moved to a new place and want to move back home. Meanwhile, the parents (Ellie Harvie and Doug Murray) have to attend a Christmas party and get stuck in the mountains by getting snowed in. While the parents are away, three thieves try to break in the Baxter’s new household to steal a priceless piece of art. What they don’t know is that Finn will be setting up traps for the thieves so they don’t steal anything.

You could say that this movie is there to help out stars pay their bills. They got big names like Malcolm McDowell (who you might remember as the voice of Metallo from the Superman Animated Series), Eddie Steeples, and Debi Mazar. At least Mazar is more for slapstick and silliness, which is dull, compared to the original film but still will get some laughs from small children in your house.

However, it’s Eddie Steeples from “My Name is Earl” who does the best job playing one of the trios of moronic criminals. He doesn’t play the role like he doesn’t want to be in the film, but rather enjoys it from first minute to last.

“Home Alone: The Holiday Heist” is not a film that you would want to see over and over again, but there’s enough for you to see it as decent and makes it safe for you to watch together with the family around Christmas time. Christian Martyn is not Macaulay Culkin…but Culkin is not a kid any more.

In the end, I would rate this film with a 2. It falls into the same trap as “Home Alone 3” where they focused on a different family, but this time it's poorly executed. This is a dysfunctional family that you just want to get off your screen.

Alright, take a breath of fresh air and just forget this stinker. Stay tuned tomorrow to look for hopefully brighter days in my 25 days of Christmas reviews.