Home Alone

n a few of the reviews I have made less than encouraging remarks about Macaulay Culkin. It's not that he's a bad actor, he does better than the average kid his age would do, but I simply despise excessively smug people (I dislike Bono, Judd Nelson, Robert Plant, Sinead O'Connor, and Don Henley for the same reason). He wasn't always that way, he used to be a cute little kid actor, that is, until he starred in Home Alone.

This is another one of those 'every one has seen it' kind of movies, it's even been a Sunday night Family movie on network television, so you have no excuses. The story: A rather large, extended family decides to travel together on trip to another relative's in Paris for Christmas. One of the younger ones (our hero) isn't happy about being lost in the shuffle, and gets mouthy at the dinner table, and sent to his room. He goes to the attic instead, and when the family misses the wake up call in the morning, he never sees them leave. The family leaves him, because they just did a head count, not a roll call, and they mistook a nosy neighbor brat as one of the traveling wilburys. So, little Kevin awakes to find his fondest wish granted, he has the house to himself. Meanwhile, half way across the Atlantic, Kevin's parents (John Heard and Catherine O'Hara) wake up and notice one of their kids is missing. While this is a cute premise, it's not exactly a strong conflict builder, so...... Enter Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci as 'The Wet Bandits'. These two have been staking out and robbing houses that are left empty over the holidays. When they get to Kevin's house, they scare Kevin, who scares them off twice. Then they find out that the only person home is just some snot-nosed little kid, no match for them. Meanwhile, an increasingly lonely and frightened Kevin makes friends with the 'boogey man' (Roberts Blossom) next door, who's actually just a lonely old guy who misses his grand-daughter. The Bandits tell Kevin they're coming to get him, so Kevin booby traps the house. This is where the film becomes a live action Loony Tunes cartoon. The bandits are dropped, smashed, roasted, tortured, and yet they keep trying to get Kevin, and almost succeed, until he's rescued by the old guy next door. The Wet Bandits are arrested and shipped to jail, the old guy is reunited with his estranged son and grand-daughter, and Kevin's mom (who has just endured the longest adventure since Planes, Trains, and Automobiles), arrives home only minutes before the rest of the clan (who returned on their regular return flight), and they all live happily ever after .. until Home Alone II.

I find it hard to believe that his movie was originally intended to showcase Culkin, not when it had so many other bigger names in it. I think, when test audiences saw the film, they were so enchanted with the cute little kid, that the producers centered the film around a kid even less well known than his brother is now (give yourself a cookie if you guessed Kieran, who is also in this film btw). And this film definitely made a star out of Macaulay Culkin. If you haven't seen Home Alone II, don't bother, it's an almost carbon copy of this film (the boy and bandits are the same, the location is his uncles house in New York, the creepy old man is a creepy old bag lady, but the pratfalls are all the same). This film is cute and funny, Home Alone II is stupid and pointless, and heaven help us if they ever make Home Alone III.