Quick Review: Home Alone

As the Christmas season vastly approaches, Christmas movies are forced upon us whether we like them or not.

Now I’m not one to start watching Christmas movies in November, anything to do with the holiday is strictly for December.

But I digress, one of the most notorious Christmas movies of all time is 1990’s, Home Alone.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, it’s about a boy, Kevin Mcallister, who is left home alone by his family before Christmas. During his time, he fights off two pesky robbers and makes a friend with a rumoured murderer, all while there's a countdown till Christmas Day where he’s reunited with his family.

Now I had never seen Home Alone until last night, and to be honest it still holds up as a good Christmas movie.

The acting is great, with budding actor at the time Macaulay Culkin starring in the lead role. Ultimately, the best characters are the Wet Water Bandits: Harry Lime and Marv Merchants. The two are insanely funny and really play into the slapstick humour littered in the film, you do start to feel sorry for them when they’re basically being tortured by this small child.

But then again, you’re reminded why they’re being tortured in the first place. They’re literally hunting down a small boy and destroying people’s houses before Christmas, they 100% deserve what they get.

Now do I believe that a seven-year-old can make these elaborate traps? Partially.

Some traps like the tar on the stairs and the toy cars make sense, but the swinging paint cans and the blow torch? He must be a genius or a psychopath.

The supporting cast are okay, you don’t see much of the family together and once they return home, they don’t really fuss over Kevin that much. They just say his name, take back some of the things they said about him, then leave him alone.

The mother, played by Catherine O'Hara, was definitely the best supporting character out of the batch and you really felt sympathy for her. Watching as she went through hell just to get back to her son, though the idea of seeing the rest of the family come home moments after she does makes her entrance a little redundant.

I know they wanted to show that she cared but taking a plane to the direct location would’ve been much quicker than taking planes to different locations than driving to Chicago; because in the end, she still showed up the same time as the others did.

Home Alone is a great Christmas movie, it’s got good humour, a few outdated references but still holds that Christmas spirit. The acting is great, the best part is any interaction with Kevin and the robbers, and the movie has this innocent theme of family and never judging a book by its cover.

Home Alone gets 4 out of 5 baubles from me.

Home Alone and its many sequels are all streaming on Disney+