Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House

This installment in the home alone franchise can't decide whether or not it's a remake of the original movie, or if it's a sequel to the first two. All in all a horrible, uninteresting, and predictable movie. This sucks. Watch at your own risk.

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 is so bad, it makes Home Alone 3 look like a masterpiece. in reality, Home Alone 3 is only adequate, but the first two movies are sterling entertainment, I can promise you that. I am just wondering whether I am the only one who honestly thought Home Alone 3 would be the worst, because the characters were changed, but was proved wrong by this abomination. This movie has nothing to recommend it, not even the gadget-filled house. At least Home Alone 3 had some enjoyable scenes.

The first problem is that no one from the first two movies return, which is a really bad sign. Even the director was different, and obviously had little experience behind the camera. The plot was laughable, and don't get me started on how inconsistent it was with the first two films.

The acting was pretty terrible. Michael Wineburg could have been a great Kevin, if the script had been better. The reality, no one can top Macaulay Culkin as Kevin. Whereas Culkin was cute and self-assured, Wineburg tried to put some enthusiasm into the role, had the script allowed him to act. Instead he was the only redeeming merit, if you call it a redeeming merit, of the movie, whereas everyone else lumbered through their scenes. French Stewart also struggled with the script, and could have also have been great, had he the goofiness and charm of Daniel Stern. Really, he has the charisma of a squashed cabbage. The others were just as bad, if worse.

The script was full of tired and stale parallels of the predecessors, there was nothing else new. As a matter of fact, I don't think I laughed once when watching this movie. Not even when Marv falls off the chandelier. That raised a small curl of the mouth, but you can't help thinking you've seen it all before.

The script was absolutely repulsive, the direction was incompetent and the acting was stiff. Plus, it was perfectly obvious it was a TV movie, you could tell by the flat camera-work. Avoid! 1/10. (very seldom do I give a 1, but this abysmal film deserves lower!)Bethany Cox

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.