Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House

Inarguably one of the worst movies ever made. "Movie" flatters it. This is a home video and I would think any one of 200 million families could be handed a camcorder and come up with a more interesting 89 minutes.

What the HELL is this? well, apart from a lingering insult to the first two Home Alone movies...who's to say! The second sequel was unmitigated trash, but compared to this, eligible for "best picture!" Everything from the script, the acting to the sets, seemingly knocked-up from left-overs at the nearest Reject shop, smack of Z-grade involvement. How this ever made it to a boxed set of four Home Alone movies, beats me.

Kevin's age doesn't even tally with the series...he's younger here than he was in New York...by his OWN admission. A screaming disaster from the opening scenes. Shoddy, wooden, synthetic, cheap and ultimately embarrassing for all concerned - but no more so than for the viewer!

Completely deserving of a minus one rating!

I strenuously recommend that you give this shonk a wide berth!

First, I'll give a little background about what I thought about the previous Home Alone movies: The first two movies were childhood favorites of mine. They basically played on every kid's fantasies of being left alone to do anything they wanted. Kevin got to screw around the house/New York, spend lots of money, watch violent movies, talk back to adults, and beat the bad guys. What little kid wouldn't want to be Kevin? Home Alone 3 was trash. It was obviously just an attempt to cash in on the franchise, and resembled the original two in nothing but name. Replacing badass Kevin was a completely new, annoying kiddie brainiac. Instead of being truly left home alone for an extended period of time, the kid was just staying home sick with the chicken pox. And instead of a simple story about a kid fighting off two bumbling burglars, there was some lame wannabe James Bond plot about international spies working for the North Koreans. The franchise was pretty much dead with the aging of Macauly Culkin, and I couldn't believe this movie was even made. I didn't think the Home Alone series could sink any lower. I was wrong.

Home Alone 4 came out as a made-for-TV movie, on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney. It's TV origins definitely showed in the poor production values and acting. I watched this movie only because I had nothing better to do, and I wanted to see whether this one would be as big a failure as the third. It turned out to be worse.

They at least they got it right by using Kevin as the main character, but it was all downhill from there. It's like the writers didn't even watch the first two movies. I understand the use of younger actors, since the originals are now too old. However, Kevin, Buzz, and everyone else actually seemed younger than they were in the originals.

The kid in this movie was Kevin in name only. The badass Kevin from the originals was reduced to some whiny, 5 year old crybaby. His parents were now in the middle of a divorce, which was very painful to him. Uh, when the hell was the Home Alone series ever about divorce? At one point Kevin's father mentions that his family always stays up to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" because it's one of their traditions. Funny, I never remembered seeing that tradition in the previous movies.

Marv of the Wet Bandits was back, but he too was completely changed. The real Marv was a goofy moron, while this guy was a grumpy grouch (it looked like the writers got him mixed up with his partner Harry from the originals). Harry was gone, replaced by Marv's fat, whiny wife. When the hell was Marv ever married? The jokes were lame and unfunny, and because the movie was made by Disney, there was also very little violence. The original Kevin hurled bricks and he laid complex systems of traps involving fire, electricity, and sharp objects. The new Kevin never even had a plan in this movie, and he resorted to such wimpy tactics as locking a burglar into an elevator, and using prerecorded messages to fool the others.

Nothing in this movie, from its attitude to its characters, resembles the originals. It really fails to recapture the greatness of the movies that preceded it. In a way, I guess that's a good thing. The lack of continuity makes it easier for us to just forget about this piece of trash.

Home Alone 4, a made for TV sequel to Home Alone 1 and 2 (part 3 had a different story line) just doesn't make the cut. The casting for Kevin and his brother and sister were terrible. The kids look younger and even in the film Kevin states he is 9 years old, where in the first two he was older, however he remembers one of the burgulars from before. Marv, played by French Stuart this time around, has a new partner, Vera, who isn't any brighter than Marv. They decided to cancel the Harry character, originally played by Joe Pesci, even though they do reference him a few times. Now, Kevin's parents are about to finalize their divorce. His father lives in a huge smart house mansion with his girlfriend Natalie and Kevin stays over for Christmas. But Marv and Vera show up with a new plan - kidnapping. Home Alone 4 makes a failed attempt of returning to the Kevin McCallister storyline, but they were better off using new characters.

Okay Home Alone 1 & 2 were really good. Home Alone 3 isn't worth watching but Home Alone 4.........well it is just piece crap!!! I can't believe there would ever be a 4th installment of Home Alone. Even though Macauley Culkin is too old to portray Kevin now they could have picked an older actor. Like someone in his early teens. Kevin is still 9 more than 10 years later. Also whatever happened Kevin's other brother and sister? In this movie there are only 3 kids and there are originally 5 kids in the first two movies. Let's just hope there are no plans for Home Alone 5 any time soon. Too many holes in the plot as well makes this a bad movie. I give it a 0 out of 10.

The first 2 Home Alone films were very successful in the early 90s. At this point Macaulay Culkin was one of the most sought after child actors in the business.However his success was short-lived and is now only known for his part in the Michael Jackson trial. The makers must have thought that Home Alone 3 was going to be as big a success. However the makers didn't realise that a new child star and a different formula was not what the viewing public craved .However regardless of this the third installment was a moderate success and actually was't that bad. Then in 2002 some bright spark decided to unleash another sequel onto the unsuspecting public. To make matters worse they decided to use the same character names and as a result Kevin McCallister looks even younger than he was in part 1.Combine this with the fact that he was't even "home alone" once during the whole film and you will see why the film is so bad .Worse still the acting is terrible and the ending so predictable you can guess what is going to happen from the opening scene. Avoid this at all costs as the first 3 (which were by no means flawless) are classics in comparison.