Written by Debra Frank & Steve L. Hayes
Directed by Rod Daniel
Kevin: "Robbers were trying to rip off your house!"
Natalie: "So you chose to trash it?"
Kevin: "No I was trying to protect it!"
Natalie: "By trashing it?"
Well, this one is a bit odd, innit? After the third one going down the reboot route and having no ties to the first two movies, this decides it wants to be both a reboot and a sequel to said first two movies. Except this time, Kevin McCallister is played by Mike Weinberg and he's lost a few family members along the way.
In this movie, it seems that Kevin's parents (Clare Carey and Jason Beghe) have separated and Peter himself has hooked up with a rich girlfriend, Natalie (Joanna Going) who doesn't do much to conceal her obvious disdain for Kevin and to be fair to her, Kevin does trash her house in order to stop a returning foe and new accomplice. I mean, he really trashed her out. I know we're not supposed to like Natalie but even I was kind of on her side there.
The returning foe in question would be Marv from the first two movies, only this time around he's played by French Stewart and seems to have more of Harry's personality than his own. He's also got a wife named Vera (Missi Pyle) who definitely comes across as a female version of her husband's former personality at times.
They're decent enough foils and there's something amusing enough in Marv's clear displeasure of being reminded of Kevin being a thorn in his side. Their scheme to kidnap some rich kid never comes to plan and there's the usual trope of Kevin warning people of danger and not being believed. At this point, Kevin probably shouldn't bother as the adults never listen to him until it's too late.
There's also the trope of Kevin misjudging one adult figure - in this case Natalie's initially standoffish butler, Mr. Prescott (Erick Avari) but not seeing that seemingly kindly (and very Irish in that US kind of way) Molly Merchants (Barbara Babcock) was actually Marv's mother and the brains behind this operation. She's a decent enough antagonist, but not clever enough to outwit Kevin though.
As for the rest of the movie, Natalie's a cartoonishly bad stepmother that it's no surprise that Peter and Kate reunite but it's horribly unearned. Buzz is nowhere near as effective as the previous two movies and like I said, the rest of Kevin's extended have seemingly been yeeted out of existence.
- This was the first movie to be a television one and it's follow up also would share the same fate.
- Originally this was going to be a sequel to the third movie (and it probably should've been) before it was decided to focus on Kevin once again.
- Kevin's not actually home alone at any point in this movie, in either house he's staying at. That did make me laugh tbh.
- This was the final film to be helmed by director Rod Daniel.
Home Alone 4: Taking Back The House is definitely by far the weakest entry of the bunch in this franchise (I say at the time of not seeing the fifth one) and I do think if they didn't want to focus on Alex again, maybe they should've gone with a different kid than bringing Kevin back but none of the original cast.
Rating: 5 out of 10
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