By Robert Scucci
| Published
When Home Alone 3 came out in 1997, I was nine years old and obviously wanted to check it out. It was such a low-effort rehash of the first two classic films that it forever tarnished the franchise’s legacy, and even as a kid I knew it was an awful, derivative pile of garbage that made me wonder who funded the project.
To my shock and horror, while looking where to stream the first two Home Alone entries, I found out the franchise is still going. It’s now six films deep, with its most recent installment, Home Sweet Home Alone, released in 2021.
Each Home Alone film outside of the first two proves that some franchises just need to die. The magic is gone. You can’t restore it by delivering more of the same, especially when every new entry is a cheap imitation of the one that came before it.
Even worse, the stakes aren’t raised. Each sequel is a lateral addition with no new spins or beats, making me wonder who these films are actually for aside from shareholders trying to make a quick buck on legacy alone.
Two Is Company, Three Is A Crowd, Six Is Sacrilegious
20th Century Studios was right to want to produce Home Alone 3 in the sense that the first two films were massively successful and became cultural events overnight. Set in a new neighborhood with a new family, the film attempted to repackage what made the original 1990 movie take the world by storm, but with a new protagonist named Alex Pruitt (Alex D. Linz). The problem is that we’d seen it all before with a better cast. Nothing new was brought to the table aside from slightly updated tech, which at least allowed for some creative booby traps.
Home Alone 3 performed well at the box office, but it never won over critics because the chemistry between Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) and his chaotic family simply could not be replicated. As far as legacy goes, it was a swing and a miss, and that much I’m willing to forgive. It happens. Studios get greedy with intellectual properties, and franchises wear out their welcome. No big deal, let’s move on.
Fox and Disney, however, couldn’t move on. They kept going like this cash cow would moo for eternity, and I fear the bottom of the barrel will continue to be scraped until the milk dries up.
Home Alone 4 Is A Punisher
Home Alone 4 is easily the strangest entry in the series, bringing back the McCallister family but with an entirely new cast. Kevin is played by Mike Weinberg, and Marv (originally portrayed by Daniel Stern) is now played by French Stewart from Third Rock from the Sun fame. Peter McCallister is divorced, living in a mansion, and portrayed by Jason Beghe, best known for his role as Sergeant Hank Voight in Chicago PD.
This time around, we get a shattered family dynamic thanks to divorce, the theme of buying your child’s affection, and a smart house that runs on remotes, toggles, and voice commands. The once practical mouse traps, marbles, and improvised chaos are replaced with now-dated tech that can’t even pass as comedy. Nothing is at stake, nothing feels fresh, and it’s painfully obvious why this one was made for television.
The Holiday Heist
Home Alone: The Holiday Heist mirrors Home Alone 3 by introducing yet another new family, the Baxters. Finn Baxter (Christian Martyn) suspects bandits are planning to ransack their new home. The Baxters move in before a gang of thieves led by Sinclair (Malcolm McDowell) can steal an old painting worth $85 million from what they assumed was an empty property.
Naturally, Finn sets up a bunch of booby traps and saves the day. Bad guys fall down, property gets destroyed, and everything is wrapped in a tidy little bow. If only two perfect films from the 90s didn’t already perfect this exact formula.
Home Sweet Home Alone
I’m not going to lie. I tapped out on Home Sweet Home Alone after about 35 minutes. This one was released directly to Disney+ and brings back classic characters in the most hamfisted way possible. Officer Buzz McCallister, portrayed once again by Devin Ratray, shows up for a cameo that exists purely for nostalgia bait.
As for the plot, I’m taking an educated guess here. Max Mercer (Archie Yates) is left behind by his family. A bunch of old dolls are worth a fortune. A pair of thieves, led by Jeff McKenzie (Rob Delaney), want to steal them. Max outsmarts them with booby traps. Bad guys fall down. The day is saved. Wow.
I Did This So You Don’t Have To
Every Home Alone movie is streaming on Disney+, and I promise you that you only ever need to watch the first two. Nothing new is offered. The stakes never rise. Each sequel is somehow worse than the last. Believe it or not, I foolishly hoped Home Sweet Home Alone might be a return to form because the cast includes genuinely reliable comedians like Kenan Thompson, Tim Simons, Pete Holmes, and Chris Parnell. By this point in the franchise, though, the franchise as a whole is a turd that isn’t worth polishing.
Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York are streaming on Disney+. So are the other four films, but you can confidently pretend they don’t exist.