Home Sweet Home Alone

There’s a part in “Home Sweet Home Alone,” released on Disney+ in 2021, where two characters are watching a remake of the fictional “Angels With Filthy Souls” (if you remember that quotable film within a film that Macaulay Culkin used to scare the pizza delivery boy (“Merry Christmas ya filthy animal”)) and question why studios bother remaking the classics: “They’ll never be as good as the original.”

You can be asking the same thing about this film that seems to indicate Disney is completely self-aware and in on the guilt. Peter Gray noted in is review, “It also showcases how much the House of Mouse doesn’t remotely care about their clout, seemingly satisfied to remake their classic IP titles – well Fox’s titles, if we’re getting technical – with very little regard for the original’s standing.” “Classics were meant to be broken,” as the film’s tagline says, and strangely enough, this poor excuse of streaming only strengthens how classic the 1990 original really is.

This isn’t a remake, but more a legacy sequel where the original characters exist in this made realm – Buzz McCallister, played by Devin Ratray, the cruel older brother to Culkin’s original troublemaker, has a small cameo as a police officer who disregards his civic duties because of his experience on the wrong side of pranks – “Home Sweet Home Alone” is unable to copy any of the humor or charm that John Hughes made, with young Archie Yates a nuisance substitute as this film’s home alone rascal, Max Mercer. Gray said, “Yates has proven himself adept at comedy – see Jojo Rabbit for proof of his ability to land a joke beyond his years – but here he’s saddled with a painfully comedy-free script that strips him of any likeability; to say that we kind of hope the home intruders he faces off against would take him down is an understatement.”

Speaking of which, the apparent burglars are way off from the bumbling, violently-minded Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci, here played by Rob Delaney and Ellie Kember, two more comedically capable performers who also embarrass themselves as Jeff and Pam McKenzie, unwilling criminals whose main reason on breaking into the Mercer’s home is the most unlikely of MacGuffins. Parents who are supposed to feel sorry for due to their money loss, Jeff and Pam think that Max stole their priceless heirloom from their home during an open house, and instead of simply knocking on the door and asking for it back, they break and enter – though that’s used loosely here – when they realize Max is home along. His family “forgot” him when they were hurrying to the airport to fly to Tokyo for an extended family vacation.

In the original when Kevin was left behind, even though that may have been a stretch, it worked in this heightened plot. Gray admitted, “Here, Max being excluded hardly seems plausible – though he’s such a little pest  I’d want to leave him behind too – and any of the genuine care and frazzled mentality that extended to original mother Catherine O’Hara as she sought out ways to get home is hardly emulated here through Aisling Bea (another damn comedienne drowning in pathetic material) who, more or less, overdoes the reactive responses as if she’s playing to not just the back of the room, but the whole darn suburb.”

Max’s enjoyment of being home alone is short-lived and barely innovative – he enjoys a desk dumped with candy, dresses in his mother’s clothes, and skates down the staircase (how fun!) – and the tricks he pulls on Jeff and Pam have none of the chilling flair Kevin did. An extra slippery driveway? You little rascal! Gray said, “And I’m sure you’re wondering why Max doesn’t just call the police or ask for help – it’s OK if you aren’t that invested – and the Mikey Day/Streeter Seidell-written script addresses this in the most throwaway fashion, further cementing the fact that so much of Home Sweet Home Alone is designed-by-numbers to merely earn those streaming miles from children who are easily amused and unbothered with consuming quality.”

Gray continued, “Whilst I could be called out for my lack of enjoyment due to the fact that I am clearly not the target audience, I can still appreciate a family-minded affair when I see one, with the original Home Alone and its boisterous sequel Lost In New York still remaining immensely watchable due to their genuine wit and desire to aim above their familial temperament.  Here, Dan Mazer (director of the useless Dirty Grandpa and writer of the Borat films, indicating he’s better at creating comedy than staging it) doesn’t just aim for the bottom of the barrel, he buries himself and his usually capable cast underneath it.”

Instead of punishing bad children with coal at Christmas time, instead make them watch “Home Sweet Home Alone.”

This is the absolute worst in the franchise, if you can believe that. You would think that they would learn after how bad the last three were received by people that they would not make another one. However, they sadly tried again, and again, they epically fail. DO NOT make the mistake of watching this on Disney+ today. Instead, put on other Christmas classics, like the original or other ones that are way better than this garbage that has the Home Alone name on it.

Happy Holidays everyone. Sorry that I had to ruin today with this review, but there’s still plenty of the day that you can still enjoy it. Tomorrow I will be looking at the next Star Wars show in “Disney Month 2022.”