Christmas Movie: ***^ Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House (2002)

While Home Alone 3 had different characters, Home Alone 4 is back to the original characters but with different actors.  The family is going through a period of separation, Peter McCallister (Jason Beghe) has a new girl friend, Natalie (Joanna Going). The three children, Kevin, Buzz and Meghan (Mike Weinberg,  Gideon  Jacobs and Chelsea Russo) decide to spend Christmas with their mother, Kate McCallister (Clare Carey).  Buzz treats him very poorly, making him do all the chores with his harrassment.  Kevein changes his mind and walks to his dad's house, where he is welcomed.  However Kevin recognizes Marv (French Stewart), bad guy from the first two, there with his girlfriend, Vera (Missi Pyle).  There are also two staff, Prescott (Erick Avari) and Molly (Barbara Babcock).  When Kevin sees the thieves come through the door, with a house device to tell the doors and alarm what to do.  Kevin repells the crooks, but in doing so he floods the house.  Kevin figures there is an inside man, and it feels it is Prescott, who runs security.  A prince is coming for Chirstmas and the plan is to kidnap him.  Will Kevin be up to the task of taking back the house after He and Prescott are thrown in the cellar?  Molly is Marv's mother.

Movie Review: **Home Alone III

**Home Alone III  (1997) Somehow the magic is gone with new actors, and the spy genre instead of the burglar.  This movie also has different actors, and doesn't live up to its predecessors.  The best actor in this show is the remote control car.  Everything else is just overdone.  I have never seen such inept spies in my life.  Alex Linz stars as a young child who is given a car with a microchip of plans for stealth technology.  He then defends his neighborhood against spies.

Movie Review: *****Home Alone

The Home Alone movies were made to entertain.  But in the first two, with the witticisms of John Hughes, we get some very powerful Christmas messages.  The first of the series is the best.  *****Home Alone was produced in 1990 with Macaulay Culkin in the leading role of Kevin McCallister.  Kevin is left home from a family trip to France, after he wished his family gone the night before.  He then spends the first day doing everything he is not suppose to, waiting for someone to discipline him.  This includes sleigh riding down the stairs, watching a violent movie, and jumping on his parent's bed.  He then takes over as the man of the house, and when a couple burglars threaten the home, he defends his home from intruders.  His efforts, and plans for home defense, and the bungling burglars are what make this show so fun to watch.  Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are very good in their roles and take the brunt of Kevin's defenses.  This includes a bee-bee gun, slippery stairs, nail and ornaments left out for bare feet, flame thrower for the head, paint cans flying through the air.  However the movie becomes classic when it adds the neighbor, who saves Kevin in the end.  He is supposedly a murderer as rumored around town and related by Kevin's older brother.  The neighbor is also estranged from his son.  Kevin, after overcoming his fears, befriends the old man.  Kevin points out that he should at least reach out to his son, that way he won't have to be afraid of what his son might say, he will know one way or the other.  This results in a healing of family relationships and we see the man with his son and granddaughter at the end of the movie.   Kevin's parents are played by David Heard and Catherine O'Hara.  The concern of mother to reach her son is part of the thrill of this movie.  This also leads to a cameo by John Candy, the Polka player.