Review of Unaccompanied Minors (2006) by Kayliegh P — 27 Dec 2007

This movie was decent. Typical of it's genre, it resembles Home Alone and Spy Kids in that it really tries to sell itself to the kid in you.

Like those aforementioned films, it has it's arch nemesis (which in this case happens to be the head of airport security), and his partners in crime (the rest of the actual employed airport security). And it has the disfunctional/neglectful parents subplot, in which the kids learn about family and the parents learn about parenting. And it has it's kids at center stage, being destructive but yet innocent, manipulative yet caring, and who eventually teach the final life lesson... which here is about family and the meaning of christmas.

The movie is typical, but fortunately it casts some credible child actors who help to bring some spark to the story. And in this genre that casting can mean life and death. On the negative side though, the movie tends to suffer from it's own sense of implausability. Sure, Home Alone was far fetched, but they made you believe it. Unaccompanied Minors doesn't quite generate that level of magic though, and thus leaves room for those thoughts to creep in.

In the end the movie manages to succeed with what it was out to do. It makes you really long to be a kid again, with the childhood crush, the endless imaginative fun, the dreams of being stuck in scenarios such as this one, and the innocent, good, destructive fun. And to that end this film brought a smile to my face.