Review of Home Alone (1990) by Stefan G — 20 Dec 2015

With Christmas just around the corner, it's inevitable that this film always ends up on rotation, as if it's some kind of annual TV tradition. This makes sense, since it's pretty much a quintessential Christmas film, complete with all the dysfunctional family clichés.

In a nutshell, it's basically Die Hard for kids, but the different is that Die Hard was awesome, and it simply doesn't work when taken through a family-friendly filter. It's also one of those films that tend to be incredibly easy to oversell.

That is to say that most people remember the slapstick, but that's only half of the movie, and often, the slapstick comes across as more flat than the producers intended. Suffice it to say, this film requires quite a lot in the suspension of disbelief department.

The film insists that Kevin was left behind by accident, but since the first part of the film is basically a typical argument taking place in a stereotypically dysfunctional family, which ends with Kevin hating pretty much everyone, doesn't it seem like they abandoned him on purpose? Never mind that, how do you sustain a whole franchise on that premise? Immediately, I get the sense that this is more of a kid's movie, and that in its self is somewhat worrying due to the fact that most of the adults here are portrayed as completely unlikable.

Another problem is that the dysfunctional family trope is so horribly repetitive even for the time the film was made, and it's almost as though the actual plot of the film was lifted from the desktop of the laziest Hollywood hack.

To be fair, the film had a pretty good cast, and at the very least Kevin develops into a more likeable character towards the end. Of course, when you look past the comedic element, it's basically schmaltz, but at least its tasteful schmaltz with good acting behind it.

As for the slapstick, it's kind of predictable. But then again, I guess that's because the film was more of a novelty than anything else, but the "filthy animal" gag doesn't seem to have gotten old.

Maybe that's why they repeated it so many times. The way the film presents itself is a bit heavy-handed, what with the overuse of orchestral music. I get why the Christmas songs are here, but John Williams' orchestra just seems unwelcome here.

We're talking about a Christmas family film, not another Star Wars film. Then again, orchestral music always ruins this sort of film by making it sound bigger than it is. However, the film itself is by no means bad.

In fact, it's decent viewing for its intended audience, but it tends to rely very heavily on suspension of disbelief, and it's a gamble which more often than not fails to pay off. Of course, it's not a complete pain to watch, but to make a long story short, let's just say that you'll only really consider watching it when your house is already decorated with fairy lights.