Movie Review: Home Sweet Home Alone (2021) on Disney+
How many movies have there been in the Home Alone franchise? Five? Six? I've lost count. Still, the first two are the best with the others seeming like cheap rip offs. To me, anyway. And this most recent version doesn't seem much better, although it is a fresher take.
Aside from all the McAllister references, at least in Home Sweet Home Alone this story doesn't involve imbecile bad guys breaking into a home with the child defending it. No, this take has a set of down-in-their-luck parents misunderstanding the whereabouts of an antique doll and trying to break into what they think is the offending thief's home to retrieve it, the offending thief being a 10-year-old kid left at home while the imbecile family takes off for Tokyo. The 10 year old is Max (played by Archie Yates), a Brit transplant who lives with his mum Carol (played by Aisling Bea) and dad Mike (played by Andy Daly)--no reason given for why they live in a suburb of Chicago and want to visit Tokyo for Christmas. Mum is mistakenly booked on a flight separately from a load of other family members, leaving earlier the next morning, and Max leaves the commotion of the family for the quiet of the garage (in the winter?) and falls asleep in the car watching a movie, so when the unwitting family scrambles the next day to make it to the airport, and Mum isn't there to look after him, no one sees that Max isn't part of the crowd. Back to the distraught mother trying to get home from thousands of miles away on the busiest holiday travel day of the year cliché.
Meanwhile, the family who needs the antique doll to save their family home schemes to break into Max's home and Max busies himself setting up impossible obstacles. Jeff (Rob Delaney) and Pam (Ellie Kemper) McKenzie are hapless thieves, Max has way too many toys and devices, and their misunderstanding is way too convenient.
What makes the biggest difference in Home Sweet Home Alone is the conclusion, which I won't spoil here. It's a completely different tack from the multiple previous storylines, and that's refreshing. Although they play up the financial difficulties of the McKenzies, which may be a downer for some families watching this film, the ending is much happier and more positive. And while the McKenzies do get injured, the injuries are nothing as severe as suffered by Harry and Marv in the original Home Alone and Home Alone 2. And that's another positive in my book.
So to wrap up this review, I'd rate Home Sweet Home Alone a very positive B- for Better than sequels 3 through 5.
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