A friend and I got drunk and watched the first three Home Alone movies after I said I'd only seen the 1st one.
Home Alone (1990): The only one I'd seen prior, but I still don't really have any nostalgia for it. It's fine for a kids' movie. Culkin is actually pretty good for a child actor and it does a good job of the "kid thinks he wants Thing, it's great in the short term but ultimately unfulfilling and he learns the value of what was missing" beats in a lot of children's stories. As the oldest of a large family, I was actually kind of surprised at how well it captured the dynamics of shit flowing downhill onto the youngest one. As an adult its pacing is slow and the dialogue kind of overt and clunky but whatever, its effective at what does for who it's aimed at. 4/5
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992): It's actually kind of crazy how this is basically the exact same movie as the first one when you watch them back to back. Tim Curry and the hotel gang are an alright shake up but still, just changing the setting to an abandoned house (Renovation my ass, that shits condemned) and swapping the old neighbor with an old lady in Central Park isn't really inspired. I also now blame this movie for all the "credit cards aren't free money" PSAs I had to see as a kid. 3/5
Home Alone 3 (1997): Alright this one's bananas. Concept of child left alone, must defend his house is kept, but the McCallisters are gone. Makes sense, Culkin grew up, whatever. The bonzo part is that an international spy ring has stolen a top-secret missile guidance microchip, and after a series of wacky mixups the child must defend his home from this black ops squad when the chip ends up in his RC car. The movie is trying to be more of an overt comedy, with the agents being more quippy with each other than the thieves were in the first two, but none of them are as good comedy actors as Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, so it falls flat more often than not. The bad production value and insane premise make it a great pick if you need a bad movie playlist for whenever we're allowed to have ironic Christmas parties again, but it's still a pretty bad slog if you actually want to watch a movie. 2/5
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993): We knew Home Alone 4 was pretty unwatchable so she made the executive decision to swap this in.Have we made incredible advances in Talking Animals tech or was this just made on a budget? I don't know, but it's kind of great how this movie has a very improvisational feel. Like look, I know we had a script, but they're animals, these are the shots we could get, do your best to make your reads fit. An okay kids movie again, but it feels kind of lacking in point? Small children will enjoy the fun animal adventures in the middle I suppose but I don't know, even for kids' cinema, kids can do better. 3/5
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