Its Christmas again and this time Kevin is being left behind to look after house all by himself. Released in 1990 this movie was put together on a budget of $18m and went on to have huge success making $476.7m at the box office. This is the movie that catapulted a very young Macaulay Culkin to stardom and at the same time a millionaire that changed his life forever. Whether that was for the better or not is not for me to decide. This movie also starred Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard & Catherine O'Hara. This is generally seen as a popular Christmas comedy but the Tri-Critic challenge won’t be affected with this one as the scores vary by 11 points. Two of us agreed with me and IMDb giving it a 7.6 but Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t like non Disney Comedies so gave it a 65%. This was not Macaulay’s first film but this was the first to have him star and send him into stardom! He was ten years old when this movie came out and his acting in this movie was better than some adults in movies I seen and listed on here as well.
Onto the plot with has one big wh-oops that you have to let the director or writer get away with to be able to set up the premise of this movie. A large family is planning on having Christmas in Paris. So everyone gathers at their house an Kevin the youngest of the family gets into a scuffle with his older brother and as punishment gets sent to attic for the night. There is a power cut over night and everyone oversleeps and then there is a mass panic in the morning to get out the house and to the airport to catch the flight. Well they had forgotten their youngest son and get the airport and fly off counting heads rather than named. They do not realise the mistake until they are in Paris. Meanwhile before going to bed in the attic young Kevin wished his family away until the morning where he gets up and finds that they have gone. 10 year old Kevin is ‘Home Alone’. Added to this a pair of burglars have targeted the whole street to break into each house whilst the families are away. The only thing standing between them and all the items in the household is a 10 year old kid without any guidance until the family come back from France. Queue Kevin steadily creating more and more advanced way of keeping the crooks out of his home. In an increasing slapstick and very violent way. I do not think you need anymore of a description of the movie plot here.
This is a movie straight from Tom and Jerry but a live action version. The traps that this 10 year old devises are pure evil. Tom would often have an anvil or a ton weight dropped onto his tail or have his face hit an iron so fast it makes his head go flat and iron shaped. Well these poor criminals end up with irons dropped on there head, spikes put throw their feet, hand burnt, heads burnt and many, many other things as well as this vindictive little kid is going to defend his house no matter what. So, all evil as side and you do (genuinely you do!) cringe as the nasty things are happening to these guys and yet you still laugh mainly because it is happening to them and not to you. This is a funny movie with a Christmas theme overriding it, personally I don’t see this as a Christmas movie I see this as a cartoon with real people that keep getting up from things that should of killed them! Kids love the slapstick and there is plenty enough of entertainment for the adults as well, this is a lovely little movie that went on to have at least two sequels which slowly went down the scale with each one.
Comments