(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from Home Sweet Home Alone)
Doug (vo): So, I'm just gonna give you a heads-up. This is not the review you think it's gonna be. Don't get me wrong, like all of you, when I saw the trailer for Home Sweet Home Alone, I felt the same anger and outrage that all of you did. "Oh, my God. Have they not learned their lesson? Now that Disney has bought Fox, they're really doing this? They're actually making Home Alone 6, they're one-off from the Police Academy movies." And while, yes, this is admittedly a bad film and nothing's gonna get me to change my mind about that, I will acknowledge, it is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. You might be astonished to find there's several things in this movie that actually work. And while, yes, this doesn't ultimately come together, I felt legit effort for it, like the people working on this were trying to make something good. They were not sleepwalking through it, and they could've. It's Home Alone 6 on Disney+. They did not have to try, but they did. And I want to acknowledge, at the very least, I felt the effort.
Story[]
Doug (vo): The story, which is surprisingly complicated...and, yeah, I guess that's Problem #1. A Home Alone movie should never be complicated...is a couple is forced to sell their house. They don't want to sell the house, as they have so many fond memories of it, but when an English mother and her son named Max enter the house, he points out that one of their old dolls, which I will say is hilariously creepy, is actually worth a ton of money. Through a series of odd events...like I said, it does get a little confusing...the couple realize it's worth a lot of money, but can't find it. They think the little boy took the doll, and, wouldn't you know it? At the exact same time, his family leaves him behind. So this couple tries to sneak in, take back what's rightfully theirs, and do so hopefully without being noticed. But, of course, Max is much smarter than he lets on...kind of. He mishears a conversation thinking they're actually coming to kidnap him...and he sets up all sorts of little traps to foil them.
Review[]
Doug (vo): And while, yeah, absolutely none of them are funny, some scenes in the first two third actually did get a few chuckles out of me. There's surprisingly a lot of people I really like in this movie, Ellie Kemper, Rob Delaney, Kenan Thompson, Chris Parnell, Pete Holmes...where the hell has he been? I haven't seen him in a while. It's kind of cool for him to pop up again.
(Clips focusing on Buzz McCallister, who, in this film, works as a police officer, are shown, along with clips of him in the first two films)
Doug (vo): Even Buzz, the original Buzz, is back in this film. And I'm not gonna lie, out of all the actors you could've gotten to bring back to a Home Alone movie, this is the only one I would legit be interested to see. Buzz, I think, is my favorite character in the films, because he actually evolves. He's a bully, but he gets smarter, he talks more sophisticated, and he was played really well. Now, granted, he's not in the film very long. And, yes, a part of me did think maybe he was gonna be, like, this evil businessman, you know, like someone who is still a bully, but is legit smart. Instead, he's a cop, which, yeah, makes sense, that is a position where he can abuse his power, but he's also still kind of dumb. I can't explain, I was hoping he would both get kind of dumber and smarter at the same time, but he does serve one important and even kind of clever purpose. When the police are called to check on the kid, he thinks it's a prank because the house is the McCallister house, and apparently, grown-up Kevin keeps calling him, saying the house is being broken into to mess with him. Now, apart from that being incredibly illegal, this is something I totally see grown-up Kevin and Buzz doing.
(Various clips resume showing)
Doug (vo): I thought that was a unique way to think outside of the box to make it that, well, everybody can't go and just get the kid. As everybody says, if Home Alone was made now, it'd be over in a few minutes. But this movie, in a strange way, kind of shows there's different pros and cons to doing it now. For example, there's no landline there, so they can't just call the house. But they say, "Why don't we just call a cell phone?" Well, he's too young to have a cell phone. Yeah, some kids have it at that age, but not everybody does. And there are one or two little bits of dialogue that I thought was just a joke, but actually come back into the story. With that said, there's a lot of scenes that are clearly just put in to come back into the story, like, it is so forced. In fact, there are so many moments where they literally use the exact same music from the Home Alone movies just to recapture that same feeling. In fact, there's a ton of moments you've seen in the original Home Alone, the mother at the airport trying to get back again, the family just ignoring the main kid. They all feel super-forced and manipulative.
(Clips focusing on the characters, in particular the main one, are shown)
Doug (vo): But like I said, there's a lot of funny people in this movie. And I get the feeling the director would just kind of let them improvise a little bit or rework a line to make it funnier. And a handful of times, it does work. The kid himself is kind of a mixed bag. When he has to work off of other people, I think he's legit funny. He knows how to take a clever insult that's thrown at him and throw it right back in a funny way. But when he's alone, I don't think he can really hold the movie. Something about the line delivery just doesn't work when he doesn't have someone to work off of, and as you'd assume, a lot of the movie, he's alone. It's in the title. Again, though, I have to give the film credit. As soon as he discovers he's alone, what's one of the first things he tries to do? He tries to look up porn. The parents have it blocked and they just move on to the next scene, but, again, I gotta tip my hat that they included it at all.
(Clips focusing on the characters of Pam and Jeff McKenzie are shown)
Doug (vo): But easily, the biggest problem is the burglars, because they're not burglars, they're just a nice couple trying to get money to save their house, and that's not fun to laugh at. Maybe if the movie had a really dark sense of humor or maybe if they reworked it that somehow Buzz was trying to get in...oh, my God, this movie is just Buzz trying to get into this house, I would love the hell out of it...but it's just this nice, awkward couple that, yes, it would explain why they would mess up so much. Unlike some of these other people. Like, I just barely bought it with Harry and Marv. (The poster for Home Alone 3 is shown) But, yeah, when you get, like, secret agents in stupid shit like that in the movies...what? They can't outsmart a kid? I do legit believe these two could not outsmart this little boy. But when they have to say lines to each other like, "Pam, I'm afraid.", and she shakingly says back, "Me, too, honey.", that's not funny, that's legit sad. If Harry and Marv said that, it'd be hilarious, but them? I'm just fucking depressed now. A Home Alone movie should not end with the kid and the people trying to break into his house embracing, and I feel like that's a pretty obvious problem that could've been avoided. But again, to the film's credit, I do feel bad for this couple's predicament. Honestly, I didn't think I would feel bad for anyone in this movie.
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): And while, yes, there's a lot of lines that don't get a laugh, there's several lines that do, enough where I actually did go and checked out who directed this movie. I was curious, why were they actually trying to make this good? (The IMDB page of the film's director is shown) I found out it was a guy who did a lot of work on the Borat movies and The Ali G. Show. And while, yes, that comedy can be divisive, I think it's safe to say it's still funnier than the Home Alone sequels. (The poster for Home Alone 4 is shown) And it's very unlikely this guy got this job and said, "Ooh! Home Alone 6! My fucking dream project!" But you can tell he and the people who worked on it tried to turn in the best they could. And while, yes, I believe there's no parallel universe where Home Alone 6 can ever be a good movie, I think this film tried a lot harder than it needed to. That's not high praise, but it's still more praise than I think some people would assume would give a movie like this. So is it worth watching? Uh, only if you're super-die-hard curious or a completionist, like, you just have to see all the Home Alone sequels. I guess I can say, if you're looking to hate-watch it, you won't find a lack of bad things in it, but I don't think it's gonna be the abomination you're looking for either. I guess the crowd that would enjoy it most outside of, you know, little kids that just need to be entertained for an hour and a half, is maybe people like me that just wants to see a creative crew trying to save something that's clearly already dead. While it's hard to say that's a recommendation, per se, I do find these kind of movies fascinating. So in a strange way, I don't regret seeing it. But if you're looking for a Home Alone movie that's just as good as the original, one of the all-time Christmas classics, how did Buzz put it?
Buzz: (from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York) Beat that, you little trout-sniffer.
(A scene showing Jeff getting hit in the groin by a bag of salt catapulted by Max is shown)