Review of Home Alone (1990) by J Brigham H — 29 Nov 2012

HOME ALONE is severely overrated and composed of base and juvenile elements, and yet does contain a certain wafting and inexplicable likability that makes it tolerable, and in the proper mood even somewhat enjoyable. Part of what makes that likability so inexplicable is that the overwhelming majority of both major and minor characters throughout are either selfish, bratty, snobby, cruel or something else of the like until near the conclusion when the change of heart is corny and superficial. O'Hara and Candy have the only truly likable characters of the film, and neither is given just screen time. Pesci and Stern are definitely the funniest of the bunch and deliver in their lacking roles with gusto, but unfortunately they have come to stand for the origins of the wave of "bumbling burglar" sideplots that permeated family films of the 1990's.

Beside all that and other things though, and acknowledging the movie for what it is and what it aspires to be, it's not necessarily a bad movie, but more like a bad kind of movie; one which caters to base sentiments and crass attitudes, culminating in a moderately amusing piece of mean-spirited humor drizzled over with treacly sentimentality.