In this installment of Was Ebert Right?, I take a look at Ebert's review of the sequel to one of the biggest comedies of all time, HOME ALONE 2: Lost in New York and wonder if Ebert was right or not.
I have a feeling that “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” is going to be an enormous box office success, but include me out. I didn’t much like the first film, and I don’t much like this one, with its sadistic little hero who mercilessly hammers a couple of slow-learning crooks. Nor did I enjoy the shameless attempt to leaven the mayhem by including a preachy subplot about the Pigeon Lady of Central Park. Call me hardhearted, call me cynical, but please don’t call me if they make “Home Alone 3.
I used to not like the original HOME ALONE. I found it to be kind of funny but also a bit boring. I didn't get why people loved this thing. Over the years, I have grown to love it and try to watch it every Christmas. It took a very long time for me to see what people loved about it. I never thought Kevin was sadistic. I thought he was just messing with them because they tried to steal his family's shit. Sure, he used some fucked up means of trying to keep them out of his house, but he's a kid who is using the resources he had at his disposal. The police aren't going to help him so he had to do what he had to do. I also don't like the Pigeon Lady but more on that later. I also find it funny that he says don't call him if they make HOME ALONE 3 but he ended up finding that film to be funny and considered it to be the best in the series.
The problem is, cartoon violence is only funny in cartoons.
This is a shallow statement. Cartoon violence can be funny in live action films. Ebert gave three stars to KUNG FU HUSTLE which is probably the closest a live action film has ever come to being a cartoon. He also liked THE MASK which is another good example of a live action cartoon. So, cartoon violence can be funny in live action. I just think he doesn't like how it is implemented here. He makes a mention earlied in his review how sadistic Kevin is and I think this is problem he can't get around. Had he been able to, I think he could have liked how the cartoon aspect is used.
In between the painful practical jokes, there’s his treacly relationship with Fricker, as the Pigeon Lady, who shows him her hideaway inside the ceiling of Carnegie Hall. Christmas carols swell from the concert below as the sanctimonious little twerp lectures the old lady on the meaning of life. If he believes half of what he says, he’d give the crooks a break.
One of the worst aspects of HOME ALONE 2 is the Pigeon Lady. I like Brenda Fricker as an actor. She brings a lot of warmth to the role but she is pointless. The filmmakers saw how well Old Man Marley was received in the first film and tried to replicate it here. The problem is that the character felt natural to the story. Anyone who grew up in the suburbs knows of a legend their town either had or currently has. There's always that one person who people think killed someone or who might be a drug dealer or a prostitute. We had a few in the town I grew up in, including a brothel down the street from my house. We heard plenty of rumors about this brothel but no one beleived because the people who lived in the house were always nice to us kids. Of course, I am sure some of the dads in the town visited this brothel but were also the ones who said it didn't exist. Turns out the house was a brothel and many of the people who were always nice to us were arrested for prositution. So, the legend off Old Man Marley made sense.
The Pigeon Lady, on the other hand, did not feel natural. It felt like the character was shoehorned in because of Old Man Marley. We spend far too much time with this character where as we got less time with Marely to build up the fear Kevin felt towards him. We didn't get very many scenes with him and only one where he and Kevin talk. In HOME ALONE 2 there are full scenes where the Pigeon Lady and Kevin talk and talk and talk. She is supposedly scary the first time we see her but that fear is quickly elevated and they just talk. These scenes ruin the pacing of the film and don't really matter all that much. You could remove the character entirely and not much would change.
Is this a children’s movie? I confess I do not know. Millions of kids will go to see it. There used to be movies where it was bad for little kids to hurt grown-ups. Now Kevin bounces bricks off their skulls from the rooftops, and everybody laughs. The question isn’t whether the movie will scare the children in the audience. It’s whether the adults will be able to peek between their fingers.
Films like the HOME ALONE films are certainly children's films. The slipstick is pure Looney Tunes and kids loved that at the time. These films helped introduce slapstick comedy to kids who didn't have access to the Looney Tunes so you can't say they aren't made for kids. Ebert has always had a problem with change. He grew up in the 50s where films were more "wholesome." Kids listened to their parents and never challenged authority. Slapstick comedy was strickly a cartoon thing. He also, famously, had problems with how the horror landscape was changing in the 80s with the slasher movie boom. He liked his horror to be a bit safer than what those films had to offer and his critique of slasher films is fairly similar to his criticism of live action slapstick comedies. He just didn't like change and it made him look at these films differntly.
So, was Ebert right?
I many ways, he was. HOME ALONE 2 is a pale imitation of the first film. That film grossed almost half a billion dollars during its theatrical run, so the filmmakers behind the sequel, which were also the ones who made the first film, made the decision to just remake the first film, but in a different setting. The problem here was that they forgot to include funny gags. Sure, there are a few funny bits. The scene in the hotel room where the staff is made to say things to an adult who isn't even there is the best part of the film but this too is also lifted from the first film. There are other bits here and there that made me laugh but the film feels like its on autopilot for most of the run time. I get they wanted to up the ante but it feels forced. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern do their best, and Eddie Bracken who plays the kindly toy store owner brings a lot of heart to the film, but Culkin seems like he doesn't want to be there. I know there was a lot of shit going on in his life but he doesn't all that great of a job of hiding it. I am not trying to hate on the kid. He is doing exactly what he is told to do but there needed to be more.
I will say this: How can anyone hate on the scene where Marv gets electrocuted or the scene where the hotel employees try to talk to Kevin and he plays audio of his uncle taking a shower? This scene made my dad laugh harder than I have ever heard him laugh, and I will always cherish that memory.
The film does not work. I remember seeing this in the theater on opening day and being really disappointed by it. While I was not a fan of the first one, I was able to find some joy in it. I had a hard time with this one as it doesn't have much joy to give me. The film is bland, boring, and fairly lifeless. It is a "going through the motions" film and those are never good.
So, yes, Ebert was right. Some of his complaints are a little weird but his dislike of the film is right on the money.
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