Home Alone 3
So here’s the deal: the original Home Alone was released in November of 1990. I was 12 years-old at the time but I already considered myself somewhat of a cinephile. I recently found a list that I made back in the day of my Top 10 films of 1990 and in the #1 slot sat David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. Shame on whomever let me watch that movie at age 12! And also--thank you! I was into more mature-type fare and not interested in seeing Home Alone. Like...at all. In fact...Home Alone came out on the same day as Rocky V and I was BENT on seeing the latter film on opening night. Well...as luck would have it Rocky V was sold out so...while 500 people watched the film that would put the Rocky series on ice for the next decade and a half...I went to see Home Alone...and that shit had me TWISTED! It immediately appealed to the 12 year-old inside of me. And...you know...the one outside of me. This was back when uber popular movies stayed in theaters for months on end...and I don’t know how many times I saw Home Alone in the theater by the time spring had sprung...but it was 6 times (note: exact figure. I saved the ticket stubs!). I just loved the ever-loving shit out of that movie. Like, I wrote Macauley Culkin a fan letter where I asked him to come have a sleepover at my apartment in Worcester and listen to my Faster Pussycat cassettes (although he was probably more of a Velvet (pizza) Underground kind of dude). Home Alone 2 came out in 1992. I saw it once and promptly forgot about it. It is now almost 30 years later and these two films are shown on an endless loop between Thanksgiving and Christmas without fail and I watch a minute or two every year. The original still gives me all of the feels. “I wouldn’t let you stay in my room if you were growing on my ASS!” Now that shit is funny! And Home Alone 2 is a perfect movie to have on in the background when you are doing other stuff and intentionally avoiding watching Home Alone 2. I was passingly aware that there were two further sequels in the Home Alone franchise but never even considered watching one of them. Part 4 starred French Stewart and went straight to video. That’s an easy out...up there with Staying Alive and Mannequin 2: On the Move. However, 1997's Home Alone 3 was actually written and produced by one Mr. John Hughes. In fact...it was the final film he actively brought to the big screen before dropping dead on a Manhattan sidewalk in the summer of 2009. I’ve talked about John Hughes at length here at VHSOTW. About how every third comedy released between 1982 and 1993 was either written or produced by John Hughes. His track record speaks for itself. 8 of the 9 films he directed are stone cold classics. The 9th one is Curly Sue. While his screenwriting credits occasionally left a bit to be desired (paging Career Opportunities....Dutch, party of two!)...his retirement left the film industry with a crater-sized void. Home Alone 3 was actually kind of successful. It cleared $79 mil at the box office and none other than Roger Ebert declared it to be “better than the first two!”...which leads me to believe that Roger Ebert was only pretend sober in the 1990’s. I figured I had to finally check out HA3 ‘cuz even the very worst of John Hughes has some SOMETHING going for it (yes, even those Beethoven movies). What I found out was this: First off...this movie is not a Christmas movie. It takes place in January. Why not have the flick take place during the summer? Why subject your cast and crew to a harsh Chicago winter for a non-seasonal plot line? Second: there isn’t a single returning cast member from either of the first two films. Not only are the headliners missing, they didn’t even re-sign any of the bit players. Where’s Buzz? Where’s Uncle Frank?? Where’s the 45th President of the United States Donald J Trump??? Third: everyone in this movie was, and is, profoundly unfamous*. You may have noticed that asterisk right there. That’s because this mostly unknown cast somehow includes the lady who currently holds the title for “Highest Paid Actress in the World”...one Scarlett Johannson. So...she’s in this movie...and there’s that. And finally....the protagonist of the film...an 8 year-old Kevin McCallister also-ran named Alex is not actually HOME ALONE! (I mean...his folks occasionally be at work and shit...but they aren’t in PARIS or wherever). What happens in this movie is this: A terrorist foursome working for current president and Home Alone 2 extra Donald Trump’s BFF’s North Korea steal a $10 million dollar computer chip and attempt to smuggle it into the United States. The computer chip is wicked important as it has the power to launch missiles or some such bullshit. The terrorists get the chip to San Francisco and stash it a remote control car. Seems like a foolproof plan until a luggage mix-up occurs and the remote control car ends up in the possession of a lady named Mrs Hess...headed due east to Chicago. Mrs Hess arrives back in her tony suburban enclave...which is populated exclusively by Tudor mansions. Her across the street neighbors, the Pruitt’s, are the d-grade McCallister’s. There’s only 5 of ‘em...the youngest being 8 year-old Alex...played by disappeared child star Alex D Linz. When the Mrs Hess arrives home little Alex offers to shovel out her driveway...even though the kid lives in a bomb ass tudor and clearly doesn't need the coin. She offers him her ill gotten remote control car as a token of her appreciation. While they are trading gifts/pleasantries Alex starts scratching BALLS and the old lady is like “boy, you better get that shit looked at!”. Alex heads home where his Catherine O’Hara cosplayer mom immediately diagnoses the kid with chicken pox! Man, on my last day of 2nd grade I went to see Karate Kid 2 and started scratching ass around the time they arrived in Okinawa. I went home and was immediately diagnosed with chicken pox by my not-a-medical-doctor mom. I was quarantined from the last day of school until the first day of third grade. And you know what? I’m still pissed about it! This kid’s chicken pox look like they were drawn on with a sharpie. Seriously, Hughes Films couldn’t have hired Tom Savini or some shit?? So Alex is poxed up and his older brother and sister and busting on him something fierce. His older sister is Scarlett Johannsson. The older brother is a poor man’s Billy from that movie Big. They call him “scar butt”...which is the sickest of sick burns. Meanwhile the four anonymous-looking terrorists are hot on the trail of the missing missile chip. There are three dudes and one ladydude. It’s like Joe Pesci was busy filming 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag and Daniel Stern was busy doing whatever Daniel Stern was doing so the filmmakers decided to compensate for their absence by adding two extra crooks. Except these cats aren’t the relatively innocuous Wet Bandits. They are international terrorists...armed with actual guns! They are totally gonna waste this kid when they get ahold of him. Truth be told...I’m not sure exactly what the Wet Bandits had in store for little Kevin McCallister had they caught him. There’s some genuine darkness coursing through these Home Alone flicks. Anyway...kid is stuck home all day hanging out with his annoying ass parrot and his pet ferret...occasionally alone...occasionally not alone. He spies the crooks snooping around the hood so he calls 5-0. They don’t find nothin’ so the kid arms his remote control car with a video camera and.sends it out to record the terrorists doing terror things. But ahh...they steal the tape...and the cops pay another fruitless visit to the hood. This time they are mad pissed...as are his folks. They call him buttface and tell him he has brought shame upon the family. You can just feel John Hughes trying to throw witty verbal punches like he used to...and failing to land a single blow. It’s at this point...with another 45 minutes to go...that someone probably threw up their hands and said “you know...we should probably just skip to the part where the kid booby traps his house and inflicts severe bodily harm on the bad guys (and gal).” So that’s what happens. Mom goes out for an hour and the kid somehow sets up like 75 super elaborate booby traps. Here I should mention that most of this movie takes place during daylight hours and looks like absolute dogshit. Like...they filmed almost entirely on grim, overcast days in a neighborhood covered in dirty snow. They must’ve hired a real amateur as Production Designer on this one! What’s that? It was Henry Bumstead? And he won Oscars for To Kill a Mockingbird and The Sting?? Well....I don’t know then! Anyway, Pesci and Stern got tore up pretty bad in the first Home Alone. But a hot iron to the face? A fall down icy stairs? A mild blowtorch to the skull? Nothing you couldn’t shake off and walk away from! In this flick almost every booby trap is designed to produce a fatality. Steamer trunks and free weights are dropped on skulls from on high. Lawnmowers are thrown at faces. Asses are lit on fire (“It’s not funny my ass is on fire”--Mr Bungle). Testicles are punched violently and often. Why this Alex fucker does not simply CALL THE POLICE we do not know. In fact...his mother calls home to check on him and tells her EVERYTHING IS FINE!!! Dude...you could’ve just ended this movie and put us all out of our misery with one easy phone call. But no...there’s at least another 20 minutes worth of unsurvivable gags. Eventually the kid escapes to rescue his neighbor old Mrs. Hess. She’s tied up in the garage. Did I forget to mention that? Oh, who cares!? He offers to make her soup and she realizes he’s not such a bad kid after all. It’s the exact same plot device used with shoveling old man in the first flick and bird lady in the second one...except Alex and Mrs Hess have barely interacted AT ALL in this movie. We get it: old people and little kids can be pals! Eventually the FBI and the police get wind that the terrorists are in Mudville, Chicago and they come in hot guns a’ blazin’ and save the day. They tell the Pruitt family...whose house is TORE...UP....that they have been after these terrorists for 7 years and that Alex is a hero and they are going to pay him a SIX FIGURE SUM. Dude...these people are shit rich already. What’s that kid gonna do with a hundred large?? The terrorists go to terrorist jail and we learn from their mug shots that they all got the chicken pox. There’s your big payoff. Hooray. Everyone lives happily ever after. I mean...not really though. Really only Scarlett Johannson does. No one else in this film was ever seen or heard from again. Merry Christmas, everyone.
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