Home Alone 3

Home Alone 3
Released	April 13, 2010
Running time	14:54
Previous review	Flubber
Next review	Old vs New King Kong
Link	http://channelawesome.com/nostalgia-critic-home-alone-3/

NC: Hello, I’m the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don’t have to. Let me tell you a story about a brilliant writer and director named John Hughes.

(Images of John Hughes and posters of his various filmography are shown as "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds plays in the background)

NC (voiceover): He recently passed away, but what he left behind will last forever. He directed such classics like "The Breakfast Club," "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and so forth. He also was a talented writer, writing screenplays for the "National Lampoon Vacation" movies, "Home Alone," "Pretty in Pink" and many more. Yes, John Hughes certainly seemed like the voice of a generation... then “Home Alone 2” came around. He wrote it, and it sucked. Then “Baby’s Day Out” came around. He wrote it, and it sucked. Then “101 Dalmatians”, “Flubber”, “Just Visiting”, “Dennis the Menace”, that shitty-ass “Miracle on 34^th Street” remake.

NC: ALL WRITTEN BY HIM! What happened? He was like the voice, and then he got lost to this slapstick-inspired shit... or “slapshit”, as I like to call it. But none of them are as bad as the crowning achievement of horror that is simply known as “Home Alone 3”.

(The movie’s title screen is shown, followed by a montage of clips from the movie)

NC (voiceover): This is a film where even if you saw the previews you felt dirty. How could such a great writer stoop to such an insulting, demeaning and absolutely un-entertaining low?

NC: Well…(sighs)…let’s see if we can figure it out. This is “Home Alone 3.”

NC (voiceover): So, the movie starts with the typical “Home Alone” music, followed by the typical “Home Alone” credits, taking place in the typical “Home Alone” setting: HONG KONG! Literally, the first minute completely misses the idea of the franchise!

Mob Boss #1: $10 million for the missile chip.

Mob Boss #2: Sounds like your clients want to build a missile that can’t be detected by radar.

Mob Boss #3: Whoever possesses the chip could dominate the entire region.

NC (voiceover): What is this? “Die Hard 5”? What does this have to do with “Home Alone”?

Peter Beaupre (leader of the spies; played by Aleksander Krupa): That’s what you asked for. Air Force NSB-100 C-Series. Where’s my money?

(A deal is made in the dark between two bad men by handing a suitcase to one another, with chilling music in the background)

NC (voiceover): Seriously, how did we go from a kid being left at a house to weapons espionage? That’s a pretty big fucking leap!

Beaupre (inside a car with the other spies): Here. (hands the chip to a female spy named Alice Ribbons) Hide it in the toy car. We’ll slip it right past airport security.

NC (voiceover): Oh, great. It’s because of bungholes like you that we have to take our shoes off at the checkpoint.

(brief cut of the three male spies (consisting of Beaupre, Earl Unger and Burton Jernigan) and Ribbons walking through the airport in a straight line)

NC (voiceover): But, unfortunately, the bag gets switched with some lady (Mrs. Hess), and the spies panic in order to find it.

(Ribbons sees Mrs. Hess getting into a taxi cab, which drives away)

Ribbons: She’s leaving. (the spies run up to the taxi, but are too late)

NC (voiceover): So they get the number of the cab through their…Glove-cam…as they pin down the area where the woman was dropped off. And, seeing how it’s a John Hughes movie, my guess is it’s a Chicago suburb where everyone is rich, quirky and white. (a cut to such a neighborhood) Oh! What a shock!

Alex Pruit (Alex D. Linz): All done, Mrs. Hess.

Mrs. Hess (Marian Seldes): You were supposed to deal with the snow promptly, weren’t you?

Alex: Yes, but--

Mrs. Hess: Butts are for ashtrays. I don’t care for excuses. (The Wicked Witch of the West theme music from “The Wizard of Oz” plays here) We had an understanding, and you broke it. Your word is worthless.

Alex: Sorry, there’ll be no charge, Mrs. Hess.

Mrs. Hess: So you can tell the neighborhood I stiffed you on a snow removal job?

NC (voiceover): Sheesh, this woman is as compassionate as a punch to my ball sack.

Mrs. Hess: (hands Alex the toy car she accidentally took at the airport) Consider this your payment. I have no use for that silly thing.

Alex: Thank you.

(cut to Alex walking home through the neighborhood in the dark)

NC (voiceover): This little boy is Alex. Not Kevin, Alex. He doesn’t even know Kevin. That’s because he’s not in this movie. None of the original characters are in this movie. This is because nothing about this movie has anything to do with “Home Alone”, despite that it carries the name “Home Alone.” So, why does it carry the name “Home Alone”? BECAUSE IT’S A GODDAMN HORRIBLE MOVIE! So, it turns out Alex has the chicken pox, which means he has to stay home from school.

(brief cut of Alex’s sister Molly, played by Scarlett Johansson)

NC (voiceover): Hey, look, Scarlett Johansson is his sister.

NC: I already made a “Lost in Translation” joke in “North”, so let’s move on.

NC (voiceover): As Alex stays at home, he starts looking through a telescope in Mrs. Hess’s house with his pet rat Doris.

(Alex holds up the bag which Doris is riding in up to the telescope lens)

Alex: Look, Doris.

(Doris looks through the lens but sees a cat’s face (coming from a TV screen), squeaks in fright and hides in the bag)

NC (voiceover): You know, I’m actually trying to envision the great John Hughes writing scenes like that.

NC: (dressed in a different suit and acting as John Hughes while typing on his laptop) “And then the mouse looks through the telescope and sees a cat. It’s just a cat on the TV screen, but nevertheless, he gets scared.” (laughs wholeheartedly) John Hughes, you’ve done it again. (laughs again) Where’s my whiskey? (takes a bottle of whiskey offscreen and gurgles it down)

NC (voiceover): So, the spies rent a house on the street, as they know the old woman [Mrs. Hess] lives on the road, but they don’t know which house. And wouldn’t you know it? Both parents have to leave the house, as the father always goes on business trips, and the mother has to make a last-minute presentation at her job.

Karen (Alex’s mother, played by Haviland Morris): (to Alex) I’ll be gone an hour at the very most. I called Mrs. Hess and told her you’ll be alone. She said if anything comes up, she’ll be right over.

NC (voiceover): Well, wait a minute, why doesn’t she just have Mrs. Hess watch him? Your kid is sick and all alone! Who cares if she’s a bitch? She’s still a babysitter, you whore! All right, well, despite that leap in stupidity, Alex continues to look through his telescope.

(Alex sees Ribbons walking a dog down the sidewalk, then one of the male spies (Unger, played by David Thornton) jogging. It then cuts to a clip from the movie Rear Window, showing Lars Thornwald looking up into the camera)

NC (voiceover): So while looking through his telescope, he comes across the spies sneaking into one of the houses. Like a reasonably smart kid, he calls 911, but the spies escape before the cops could see them.

(two cops break into the back door of a house and are armed; a dog enters in sight, and a cop aims his gun at it)

Cop #1: Freeze!

(the dog freezes in place by crossing a foreleg in front of another; then a cut to black, and a gunshot is heard)

NC: (“John Hughes”) Nah, nah, that’s too dark. (deletes the “scene” from his script) That’s too dark. That’s the old John Hughes. This is the quirky, lighthearted John Hughes! (sighs) Let’s see, let’s see…Oh! I know! (types on his laptop) “The dog actually freezes in place.” (laughs wholeheartedly) Delightful. (laughs again) Where’s my absinthe?

NC (voiceover): So both the mother and the cops think Alex made up what he saw and don’t look into it any further. But wouldn’t you know it? The spies break into another house the next day. Well, that’s OK, though, because we know the parents stayed home this ti-- (cut to scenes of both parents leaving again) Oh, you got to be kidding me. They left again?! What kind of parents are these? Do they leave their fucking medicine in the toy chest as well?

(cops arrive in their squad cars again)

Ribbons: (communicates through a secret microphone, alerting the other spies) Abort! Abort!

NC (voiceover): So, once again, he calls the cops, the spies get away, and nobody believes him.

Alex: I saw a burglar yesterday, and I saw a burglar today.

Police Captain (Baxter Harris): There was no one in that house.

NC: But there was some…(gestures to his right with both hands) thing on the wing.

NC (voiceover): So he figures it’s time to take matters into his own hands.

(cut to Alex marking a map of the neighborhood he drew and crossing off the houses the spies have broken into so far)

Alex: First, the Stephans [he pronounces it "steh-phens"], then Mrs. Hess. (Doris is standing on the map with her nose pointing to the Alcott’s house) I agree, Doris. The next stop is the Alcott’s house. What kind of a burglar goes into a house and doesn’t take anything? Do you know what I think? I think they’re looking for something special. They’re looking in everybody’s house ‘cause they don’t know who has it.

NC: (mimicking Alex while holding a cigar pipe) Yes, it appears we’ll be more than elementary at this matter. Doris, fetch me my violin. (pretends to play a sad song with a “violin”)

NC (voiceover): So Alex gets a video camera and some duct tape as the parents leave him for the THIRD TIME! All right, this is comical now. I mean, really comical. Remember what a big deal it was in the first film when they left him [Kevin] behind?

Kate McCallister (from “Home Alone 1”): How we could do this? We forgot him.

Uncle Frank (from “Home Alone 1”): Just horrible.

Kate (“Home Alone 1”): What kind of mother am I?

NC (voiceover): And now, it’s like (mocking Karen in “Home Alone 3”) “Have fun while I’m gone, son! Be sure to stay away from the rat poison I keep under your pillow!” (normal voice) So with a video camera, duct tape and a few wires, Alex manages to get…his own wireless security network. The five-year-old* now has a portable wireless security network! The realism in this movie just FUCKING astounds me! (a clip of Alex controlling his toy car with a camera strapped to it) So he sneaks his camera into the next house the spies are looking through. Yeah, thank God none of the houses have babies, toddlers or stay-at-home parents. Sort of lucked out on that front. But one of the spies finds the car as Alex tries to think up a plan to distract them.

(NOTE: Alex is actually eight years old, as he stated earlier in the movie.)

(Alex holds up a phone up to his pet parrot, and its voice is transferred into the answering machine that’s inside the house the spies are in)

Alex: Ring! Ring!

Parrot (voiced by Darren T. Knauss): Hello? This is Karen. Hi! How’s it going? I-I think burps are overvalued.

NC: (“John Hughes” typing on his laptop) And then…(tries to control his laughter)…he trains the parrot…(holds in his laughter)…he trains the parrot to record a fake message on the answering machine! (laughs again, then smokes a joint and exhales loudly)

NC (voiceover): But that plan seems to backfire as the spies get the car and examine the video recorder on top.

Beaupre: It’s a camera. Someone’s onto us!

NC (voiceover): (dubbing for Beaupre) Wait…now…now just hear me out. What if it’s a five-year-old boy who wired a security system in his own house… (dubs for Jernigan, played by Lenny Von Dohlen) Oh, come on, that’s something John Hughes would come up with if he was on Quaaludes.

NC: (“John Hughes”) ...Did I really just write that? (deletes the “dialogue” and reaches for something offscreen) Where’s my Quaaludes?

NC (voiceover): So even though they get the tape, Alex drives the car away with the chip inside. They partake in a little chase, we have ourselves a little slapstick, (bored) yuk-yuk, (normal) as Alex discovers the chip inside the car. Again, to his credit, he reports it to a member of the military, and even though they don’t believe him, he gives them the number on the chip. But the bad guys find out where Alex lives as--now, prepare yourselves--the parents leave again! I don’t even care anymore. If you want your kid to be Milk Carton of the Week, that’s your problem.

(cut to Mrs. Hess answering the phone at her home)

Mrs. Hess: Hello?

NC (voiceover): This time, however, they do ask Mrs. Hess to watch him, but only AFTER they left, which is pretty damn stupid, especially how the bad guys find her and tape her to a chair. Parents of the Year, or morons?

NC: (thinks for a few moments) Morons.

NC (voiceover): So, of course, it’s up to our freaking boy genius to save the day. First, he tries to trick the woman by controlling the dog with a dog whistle. He doesn’t have a dog, but he has a dog whistle. Uh-huh. I’m sure he buys cat food for fun, too.

Ribbons: (speaks into a secret microphone while standing in front of Alex’s house) I repeat, there is no movement inside. (the dog has wrapped its leash around the spy’s legs) Permission to enter. (Alex is hidden from view outside the entrance as he blows his dog whistle again; the dog hears it and runs to it, dragging Ribbons through some bushes, and she ends up on the driveway as the dog runs away; during all this, the Looney Tunes theme music is playing)

(NOTE: This scene is actually before Alex sets up the booby traps.)

NC (voiceover): The other spies try to get through the back, but of course, he has traps for them, too.

(Cut to Unger dressed in white winter gear trying to cut a wire and ends up getting electrocuted in a cartoony way, in addition to farting out electric sparks)

(A clip from “Rocky” is shown)

Mickey: You’re gonna eat lightning, and you’re gonna crap thunder!

(Back to the movie, with Unger groaning in pain after farting out the sparks)

NC (voiceover): Actually, that’s the second John Hughes farting joke I’ve seen in a week. The other one being in “Flubber.” Why is he all about the strange things coming out of people’s butts?

Unger: I-I just think we’re just having an off-day. (The spies walk up to the door as a device inside the house is set off, catapulting a bookcase from the attic window and landing on the two male spies; after this happens, a clip of the Looney Tunes Road Runner runs past this scene and goes “Meep-Meep!”)

Jernigan: Unger? (a fishhook hooks onto the spy’s jacket, and the hook is attached to a string that turns on the outdoor water faucet, which sprays onto him)

NC (voiceover): (dubs for Jernigan, who tries to shut off the faucet) Oh, no! It’s not like I can just walk away from the water! That will coincide with my phobia of not walking away from the water! Oh, damn my extremely odd and unbelievably rare neuroses! (normal voice) So, yeah, we get the traps just like in the other two movies, but these traps are, like, really freaking precise, like he has to know EXACTLY what spot they’re gonna be on and not be a centimeter off.

(cut to Alex gasping at the sight of Jernigan entering the house through a window)

Jernigan: Gotcha!

NC (voiceover): (Jernigan falls through several floors and onto a toilet as NC speaks) And look at this: he [Alex] cuts holes in the house! How the hell did he do that? Did he call Ace Hardware to set these up?

Alex: Ouch!

NC (Voiceover): Watch this scene. It’s not even funny. It’s like something out of a horror movie.

(An active lawnmower reaches over the edge of the hole and falls through, landing on Jernigan, who screams in pain)

NC: ….Jesus.

NC (voiceover): And, of course, we have pratfall after pratfall after pratfall.

(A scene of Jernigan falling down the basement steps while his feet are stuck in Mega Block toy tubs filled with glue)

Animated Cat (from a “Mouse Trap” commercial): (sings while intercutting with the slapstick footage in the movie) Just turn the crank and snap the plank, and knock the ball right down the chute, now watch it roll and hit the bowl. You knock the ball into the rub-a-dub tub, which hits the man into the pan, the trap is set, here comes the net! Mouse Trap! I guarantee it’s the craziest trap you’ll ever see!

NC (voiceover): Believe it or not, the mother calls in the middle of all this, and Alex says that everything is fine!

(Beaupre listens in on the conversation)

Karen: Honey, you’re out of breath. Is something wrong?

Alex: No, mom, everything is fine.

NC (voiceover): Oh, yeah, just finding four terrorists and fleeing for my life, but don’t worry. You have deadlines to meet! (cut to footage of police cars driving through a blizzard) But it turns out the number on the chip got to higher authorities as they pull Alex’s mother and his siblings aside for questioning.

Karen: It’s Alex. This is my other son. Why, what’s happened?

FBI Agent Stuckey (Christopher Curry): He may be in danger.

NC (voiceover): (dubs over Karen) Maybe I shouldn’t have left him alone 18 times.

Karen: He’s not here. He’s at home.

Stuckey: Let’s move!

Karen: Why is he in danger?

Stuckey: We think he intercepted a top-secret electronic device stolen from a defense department contractor by a group of international criminals working for a North Korean terrorist organization. (the siblings look dumbfounded)

NC: (“John Hughes” gurgles down his whiskey bottle and presses a button on his laptop) Period.

NC (voiceover): Meanwhile, the mayhem continues at home. (Jernigan and Ribbons spot Alex and run up to him, but end up colliding into each other) Say, you ever notice that these secret agents suck?

(cut to Alex standing outside with the missile chip, and all three spies standing at the attic window high above a snow-covered trampoline)

Alex: Recognize this?

Unger: How did he get outside?

Ribbons: The same way you’re gonna get outside.

Jernigan: How?

NC: (laughs) Is it me, or did he turn into Christopher Walken there?

Jernigan: How?

Christopher Walken: (looking into the camera) I don’t…know.

NC (voiceover): So without giving too much away--oh, who the fuck cares?--they scream and get hurt! Surprised?!

(cut to Jernigan and Unger falling through the trampoline after jumping out the window)

NC (voiceover): So, he [Alex] frees Mrs. Hess as the cops finally arrive and take the spies away.

(cut to Alex and his mother running up to hug each other)

Karen: Oh, Alex. I’m so sorry.

NC: Oh, for what? Every possible thing a parent can do wrong?

Stuckey: Seven years, I’ve been after this guy [Beaupre]. He always manages to slip away.

NC (voiceover): (dubs for Stuckey) And now a five-year-old catches him. This is the worst day of my life.

Stuckey: Thanks.

NC (voiceover): But wait a minute! There’s still one more spy on the loose! But it’s OK; a parrot operating a toy car, lighting a match and setting off a series of explosions has it totally under control. Doctor fucking Dolittle couldn’t get an animal to do all that!

(a shot of a kiddie pool flies in the air as the explosions occur)

NC (voiceover): So, after all is said and done, what does the film finally end on? The father giving his son a race car as a gift! Oh, the irony, oh, the irony!

Parrot: (riding on the red toy car with Doris) Gentlemen, start your engines! (everybody in the room laughs at this) Man overboard!

NC: (“John Hughes” finishes his script) There! I did it! I finally did it! I wrote the worst “Home Alone” script ever! (laughs) I know I’m contractually obligated to write at least one more movie, but this script is so bad, no studio would ever buy it! (laughs again) What are they gonna do? Hire the director of “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” (Raja Gosnell) to direct it? (laughs again) No studio is that stupid! (laughs again) John Hughes, you’re a genius! (picks up his laptop and walks offscreen)

Studio executive: (voiced by NC offscreen) We’ll take it! (“Ka-ching!” sound effect)

NC: (“John Hughes”) My career is over!

The End

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