Home Alone 4 (2002) (TV)

User Rating:

2.0/10   

Director:

Rod Daniel

Writers (WGA):

John Hughes (characters)
Debra Frank (written by) ...

Release Date:

3 November 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Family

Plot:

Kevin McCallister's parents have split up. Now living with his mom, he decides to spend Christmas with...

Plot Keywords:

Mansion | Christmas | Prince | Trap | Booby Trap

Cast

French Stewart	...	Marv Merchants
Erick Avari	...	Prescott
Barbara Babcock	...	Molly
Jason Beghe	...	Peter McCallister
Clare Carey	...	Kate McCallister
Joanna Going	...	Natalie
Missi Pyle	...	Vera
Gideon Jacobs	...	Buzz
Chelsea Russo	...	Megan
Mike Weinberg	...	Kevin McCallister (as Michael Weinberg)
Lisa King	...	Queen
Sean Cameron Michael	...	Cop (as Sean Michael)
Craig Geldenhuys	...	Prince
Andre Roothman	...	King
Anton Smuts	...	Cab Driver

Also Known As:

Home Alone: Taking Back the House (USA) (DVD title)

Runtime:

Brazil:84 min | USA:89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo (presented in Dolby Surround)

Certification:

USA:TV-G (TV rating) | USA:Unrated (original rating) | Finland:K-7 | Brazil:Livre | South Korea:All | Netherlands:6 | Australia:PG | Germany:o.Al. | UK:U | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Cape Town, South Africa

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

'Daniel Stern', who played Marv in the first two films, was approached to reprise his role in this one. Stern quickly declined, calling it "an insult, total garbage."

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the flood, you can see six inch boards on all the doorways keeping the water from spilling into adjacent rooms.

Quotes:

Kevin McCallister: Robbers were trying to rip off your house!
Natalie: So you chose to trash it?
Kevin McCallister: No I was trying to protect it!
Natalie: By trashing it?

Movie Connections:

Spoofs The War of the Roses (1989)

Completely Unfaithful Sequel

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.