HOME ALONE 2

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: sadistic violence

Rated:

If it works once, it'll be a big hit again. This is the policy taken by filmmakers toward Kevin McCallister's second dealing with the notorious Wet Bandits from the Christmas classic Home Alone. The formula here has been seen before -- in the first film. With a little tweaking it could have been less predictable and less a carbon copy of its highly successful predecessor.

A year after the Christmas in which the McCallisters forgot their youngest child on a trip to Paris, they are preparing to spend the holidays in a summer wonderland. Florida has no Christmas trees and beaches instead of snow banks. Kevin (Maculay Culkin) isn't pleased. His life continues to be wrought with turmoil at the hands of his devious and manipulative older brother Buzz, who humiliates Kevin in the middle of his school pageant solo. This lands Buzz a punch in the face, which sets off a chain of events and ruins the pageant. As punishment for refusing to apologize, Kevin spends the night alone on the third floor. The next morning is another rush to the airport as, once again, the family has slept in. This time Kevin is there at all the checkpoints but in the process of pulling batteries for his walkman from his dad's bag, loses everyone in the airport. Mistaking another man for his father, he follows him onto the wrong plane!

Landing in New York several hours later, Kevin first panics and then comes into his own. Using his father's credit card, he checks into the Big Apple's most elite hotel and makes good use of the room service and video stash. He goes sight seeing. He is terrified by a bird woman in the park. Most of all, he makes a friend of Mr. Duncan, the owner of the largest and most charitable toy store in the city. And he also runs into a couple of old acquaintances... Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern) escaped during a prison riot and intend to relive their thieving days, this time targeting Toy Stores. While his mother frantically searches for him in the Miami and Chicago airports, Kevin is going to spend another year in the trenches, to save Duncan's Toy Shop and the money that the owner intends to donate to the children's hospital. Chaos ensues, with the two thieves getting a double dose of malicious pranks.

Much like the first, the film justifies Kevin's rude behavior to adults through his good deeds -- namely his compassion for the underdogs of society, and risking his well being to protect Duncan's charitable intentions from two ill-meaning scoundrels. He still talks back to his parents and figures of adult authority, which he also manipulates for his own end. One comical scene has the hotel manager crawling on all fours down the hallway because Kevin has made him believe there's a "deranged guest with a gun!" Rather than waiting to be found and reporting the mix up to airport security, Kevin uses his father's credit cards and petty cash. He does show kindness to a homeless woman and is in turn rewarded when she saves his life. He also generously offers a donation to the children's hospital, intending to pay his dad back with money he's saved at home. These values are worth nothing, but the film is very much a slapstick comedy with many of the pranks turning out to be more malicious than the first time around.

Instead of nails and paint cans, this time Kevin has involved three-story falls, electrocutions, and bags of wrenches. The thieves are thrown through the air, flipped into car windows, fall from great heights, are battered with falling paint cans, go tumbling down stairs, crash through walls, electrocuted, hit with cement bags, and experience the joyful mixture of kerosene and open flame. Reality is suspended, since no one could possibly live through this house of horror. They are also attacked en masse by pigeons in the park, have their private parts shot with a staple gun, and slip and fall on slippery flat surfaces. Marv makes the mistake of flirting with a New Yorker, who punches him soundly in the jaw for his efforts. Later they run into her again and in order to escape from his assailants, Kevin pinches her backside and blames it on Marv and Harry, who are both laid flat with another whack. There's some mild sexual innuendo. Early on, we see Kevin's uncle showering through a hazy shower screen. He yells for his nephew to get out of the bathroom. Kevin later uses a blow-up pool toy and the audio recording of this event to threaten off the hotel manager.

Kevin also puts to good use a gruesome movie, manipulating it as a response to hotel questions. The dialogue, originally between a man and a woman, lends the accompanying staff to be the bunt of a homosexual joke that implies the manager has been smooching other men. There are two mild abuses of deity, one profanity, and one coarse reference. Harry does a lot of cursing but all in a rushed monotone beneath his breath; you can't tell what he's saying. It's less original than the first, and has some slow moments. The best scenes are the pandemonium and punishment Kevin creates for the villains and even then, it's such dark, sadistic behavior that many families won't be impressed. It's a tolerable sequel but doesn't have the creative juices of the first.