‘Shame on you. This is my life choice...’
I should begin by stating that I’m not against reboots generally. I’m not precious about films in that way. The legacy of an original film is set in stone, no reboot can damage that. Even if it’s that Ghostbusters movie that everybody hated. So please don’t think that my review of this film is in anyway influenced by some kind of loyalty for the source material. It isn’t that. I also love this cast. I’ve paid money to see Rob Delaney live (and thoroughly enjoyed it). I watched all of Aisling Bea’s excellent dramedy This Way Up. Ellie Kemper is consistently funny playing that one character she plays. I love Pete Holmes. Timothy Simons is hilarious in Veep. This is a great cast. So again, don’t think I went into Home Sweet Home Alone with some kind of axe to grind because that’s categorically not the case. Quite the opposite in fact. No. This film is receiving this review because it is an irredeemable piece of shit. This is a movie that has made the world a worse place. I have seen every bad Christmas movie out there. Here is a list of ten of them. This movie belongs on that list. Utter, utter nonsense.
We meet an annoyingly precocious ten-year-old kid called Max (Archie Yates) in the first act. We know he is ten years old because the dialogue tells us this every five seconds as if the scriptwriters believed they were writing a film for dementia patients who require constant reminders of what is going on. And guess what. He is left home alone. We also meet adorable but struggling couple Pam and Jeff McKenzie (Kemper and Delaney respectively – both of whom look embarrassed to be there). They have a stupid rare doll that is, for some reason, worth $200 thousand stupid dollars, and the stupid kid steals it so they spend the rest of this stupid movie trying to get it back. Just typing that plot out has made me angry all over again.
Where to start. Aisling Bea sporting a terrible British accent. A ludicrous plot that takes the two best things about the original movie (demonstrating what a kid might actually do if left home alone and two proper villains) and disposes of them immediately. Instead, we have the annoying kid just being a little bitch all the time whinging about missing his parents. Waaah waaah. Boring. We don’t come to a Home Alone movie for that shit. We come to see the Wet Bandits take some hits. Instead, we have uninspired slapstick which doesn’t even deserve to be called a tired retread. The whole thing is just an almighty mess. The script is garbage, only to be enjoyed by cretins. The performances are humiliating. Even the score is forgettable.
When I saw that Home Sweet Home Alone had an IMDB rating of 3.5/10, I assumed that was because superfans of the original had organised online to trash this movie. It turns out that it isn’t what happened. 3.5 is actually too generous for this abomination. My cat has sicked up more interesting projects than this. I’ve picked things out of my nose that contain more artistic merit. I’ll be honest. I’m furious.
Home Sweet Home Alone is a thing (I can’t bring myself to call it a film) that truly, honestly only exists to make money. This is a cynical cash grab made by cackling corporate ghouls to sell to morons. I beg of you, I implore you. Do not watch it.
If not for Devin Ratray reprising the role of Buzz (I would say ‘spoiler’ here, but this movie was spoilt from birth) then I would score this ‘film’ 0/10.
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.