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‘Home Sweet Home Alone’ Review: The Best Post-Culkin Film in the Franchise, Which Isn’t Saying Much

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‘Home Sweet Home Alone’ Review: The Best Post-Culkin Film in the Franchise, Which Isn’t Saying Much

When it was released in 1990, Home Alone was a massive hit, creating a new holiday classic, and making Macaulay Culkin one of the biggest child stars of all time. Over the next thirty years, 20th Century Fox attempted to recreate the magic of the original after Culkin left the franchise with terrible sequels that either pumped up the absurdity (Home Alone 3), recast the McCallister family, and – strangely – put them through a divorce (Home Alone 4), or never actually left anyone home alone at all (Home Alone: The Holiday Heist). Yet with the franchise now under Disney, Home Sweet Home Alone becomes the best Home Alone sequel since the Culkin days, although that still isn’t saying much.

Most of the Home Alone films so far have followed a similar structure: a kid gets left at home with little or no supervision, a group of criminals try to rob the house, and said kid tries to defend his home. Home Sweet Home Alone maintains this format for the most part, but tells this story through the eyes of the “criminals,” Pam and Jeff Fritzovski, played by Ellie Kemper and Rob Delaney, respectively. With Jeff out of work, the couple has to sell their family home, and during an open house, they meet Max Mercer (Archie Yates), who pokes fun at a box of old dolls that Jeff finds in his closet.

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Soon after, the Fritzovskis notice that one of the dolls is extremely rare and worth $200,000, a clear solution to their dire money problems. When they try to find the doll, they discover it missing, and assume that Max must’ve taken it. The Fritzovskis arrive at Max’s house just in time to see the Mercer family leaving for Christmas vacation, yet they also see where the family left their keys while they’re gone. Even though the Fritzovskis don’t want to break and enter, their money problems make this an urgent matter, as they decide they need to get into the house and get that doll. What they don’t know is that young Max has been left home alone, and after seeing the Fritzovskis near his house, Max assumes that this couple is trying to kidnap him, and decides he has to protect himself and his home.


Focusing on the criminals is an interesting direction to take this story, and Kemper and Delaney are easily the best group of burglars that this franchise has seen since Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern). Yet in shifting this focus, it also makes the audience care for these characters, to a point that they don’t want to see this well-meaning duo get hurt through inventive and painful ways. Making matters worse, it feels sort of tone-deaf to have this couple who are struggling to get by having to break into a clearly rich family’s home in order to keep their own home. A couple trying to do their best to stay afloat doesn’t deserve third-degree burns and Nerf guns full of darts with tacks attached to them.

In a strange way, Home Sweet Home Alone almost makes the home alone kid secondary to this story, which might be for the best. Once more, this goes through the same beats of the other films, albeit in a truncated version. Max goes through the same celebration of childish freedom that we’ve seen for over three decades, complete with eating overwhelming amounts of junk food, and doing exactly what his parents have told him not to do when they were around. There’s of course the kid wishing he could make his family disappear, and the mother (Aisling Bea) attempting to get back to her son once the family realizes they’ve abandoned the kid.


Home Sweet Home Alone fits all of this in seemingly because it’s what the audience expects. The script by Saturday Night Live’s Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell seems like it has a checklist of moments from the original film that has to reproduced, but these moments are either rushed or placed into quick montages that don’t do much other than exist for nostalgia sake. If Home Sweet Home Alone can change the focus of the story to the criminals fairly effectively, then there’s no reason why this film has to continue living in the past.

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RELATED: ‘Home Sweet Home Alone’ Trailer Reveals Holiday Hijinks and a McCallister Family Easter Egg

But by also brushing by these moments, Home Sweet Home Alone misses the family dynamic that made the original so special. The family here is almost a non-entity, yet the casting is so good, it seems clear that there must be more of the cutting room floor. Great comedians like Andy Daly and Chris Parnell are relegated to glorified cameos without a single joke from either of them, while at least Pete Holmes does get a few decent lines in the panic to leave for vacation on time. But by shrinking the importance of family here, it misses a key element of what made Home Alone a long-lasting favorite.


When watching Home Sweet Home Alone, it almost feels like a more direct retelling of Home Alone was originally filmed, then that material was mostly scrapped to tell a more original story in this series. Director Dan Mazer does the best with what he can, but this still feels like a more reverent film crammed into this new take. Considering that filing was shut down during COVID, it’s entirely possible Home Sweet Home Alone is the result of a structural overhaul.

But while the nostalgia here can be crippling to the overall story, it also provides some of the film’s best moments. The return of Devin Ratray as Kevin McCallister’s big brother, Buzz, manages to both revel in the past of the series, without being too beholden to it. Instead of just reciting the same old jokes once more, Ratray’s role finds a fantastic way to homage the original this is smartly handled and hilarious.


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Even though Home Alone seems like a fairly basic conceit, the original – written by John Hughes – was deceptively simple, yet expertly crafted. Director Chris Columbus reportedly once said of Hughes, “John really filled in every possible logic hole, and the audience always bought it.” What Hughes wrote with the original was almost like one of Kevin’s impeccably pieced together traps: perfectly constructed with every piece falling into the right place. Over the decades, multiple sequels have to recapture what Hughes did and failed miserably.

Yet of all the post-Culkin films in this series, Home Sweet Home Alone gets the closest to recapturing the spirit of what made Home Alone work, despite mostly ignoring the family dynamics of the child at the center of the story, and speeding past the kid’s wish fulfillment of being home alone. This newest sequel makes some fantastic choices in the beginning, and in the charming conclusion, but Home Sweet Home Alone’s reverence for the original clashes with the film’s more unique ideas that actually makes this a delightful surprise at times. Home Sweet Home Alone proves that this franchise is no longer what the French call “les incompétents,” but this franchise still has some work to do in order to get back to its glory days.


Rating: C

Home Sweet Home Alone comes to Disney+ on November 12.

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Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octane Thrill Ride

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Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octane Thrill Ride

Brad Pitt leads a wickedly funny ensemble in a high-octane actioner loaded with twists. Adapted from the 2010 Japanese novel by Kōtarō Isaka, Bullet Train has a bevy of disparate assassins manipulated by a mysterious criminal mastermind. Stuntman turned action director, David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde), stays true to form with unrelenting bloody and flamboyant violence. The codenamed characters get downright verbose before beating, stabbing, and shooting each other to bits. The loquacious banter tends to run long, but the narrative always bounces back with sharp reveals. Strap in for a helluva ride.

Ladybug (Pitt) boards the overnight bullet train to Tokyo with a newfound sense of self. He’s chock-full of philosophy after recovering from a near fatal ambush. Ladybug ignores his unseen handler’s advice to take a gun. Surely any issues can be resolved peacefully. The job seems straightforward enough. Steal a briefcase with a sticker and exit at the next stop.

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Also on board are Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), ruthless “twins” known for their brutal methods. Lemon is obsessed with the British children’s show “Thomas & Friends”. He reads people by comparing them to the anthropomorphized trains. The twins are escorting the previously kidnapped son (Logan Lerman) of a powerful gangster, the White Death (Michael Shannon).

None of the hired guns are aware of the Father, aka Yuichi Kimura’s (Andrew Koji), mission. He’s out for vengeance but foolishly runs into a deceptive figure. The Prince (Joey King) has a score to settle with the White Death. Meanwhile, the Wolf (Bad Bunny) joins the fray after his truly horrific Mexican wedding. He’s also ready for serious comeuppance. Ladybug quickly realizes they’re all unwitting pawns in a dangerous game. Someone has packed the train with killers for an unknown purpose. He desperately wants to get off but can’t seem to escape the carnage.


Related: I Love My Dad Review: Patton Oswalt’s Delightfully Cringeworthy Catfishing Comedy

Cast of Bullet Train

Bullet Train introduces the cast with splashy entrances that flashes back to their dark pasts. The murderous montages are informative but don’t fill in every gap. The script doles out more critical information as the bodies pile up. Alliances bounce back and forth as everyone wonders who’s actually pulling the strings. The whodunit element works well as the audience becomes embroiled in a series of betrayals. You don’t have a sense of the plot’s true trajectory until the third act. The film builds to a showdown that delivers a huge action payoff.

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Bullet Train has complex characters that each contribute slices of devilish humor. Brad Pitt preaching self-help and understanding is an effective gag throughout. Brian Tyree Henry’s constant comparisons to Thomas & Friends aren’t as comical but play an important role in the story. There are a lot of moving parts. Leitch, who worked as Pitt’s stunt double for years, is clearly fond of his players. He gives everyone a chance to babble incessantly. I would have trimmed the dialogue to be more incisive.


The action scenes are worth the price of admission. Leitch has a great eye for mixing stylized set pieces with intimate fights. He knows when to go big and small. You never feel let down by his pacing. There’s always the right amount of adrenaline to keep your pulse pumping. Bullet Train is another feather in a skilled filmmaker’s cap. Watch out for A-list cameos and a mid-credits scene.

Bullet Train is a production of Columbia Pictures, Fuqua Films, and 87North Productions. It will be released theatrically on August 5th from Sony Pictures.

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Bullet Train Review: Brad Pitt Has A Blast In The Silly And Badass Action Comedy

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Bullet Train Review: Brad Pitt Has A Blast In The Silly And Badass Action Comedy

If orchestrated properly, with adjusted stakes, tone, and atmosphere, there can be a beautiful, symbiotic relationship between intense action and comedy. A hero pulling off a rapid and vicious series of blows against an opponent can be savage and dramatic in one context, but it can also be so deliriously awesome that an audience’s first reaction is to laugh. Fast paced martial arts can be used for wonderful physical humor (see: the legendary career of Jackie Chan), and the best examples provide dual layers of entertainment: you marvel at the skill in all the ass-kicking, and cackle at the creativity in the choreography.

This is a sweet spot that filmmaker David Leitch knows well. After peppering funny moments in John Wick and Atomic Blonde at the start of his directorial career, he brilliantly utilized the action/comedy weapon that is Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 2, and crafted some excellent physicality with the unique styles of Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. His latest, Bullet Train, is another effort that takes aim at that particular tonal target, this time with his most expansive ensemble yet, and it’s another success. With a sensibility that could be described as early Guy Ritchie with more specific action focus, it’s a movie that is both silly and skilled and inspires its primary star in particular to do energetic and engaging work.

Based on the novel Maria Beetle by Kōtarō Isaka, the film weaves multiple narrative threads through the cars of the titular bullet train as it speeds through the country of Japan – all of the protagonists being killers with their own particular reason and motivation for being aboard. Ladybug (Brad Pitt), for example, is a hired gun who has been tasked by his handler (Sandra Bullock) to perform what sounds like a simple job: find a briefcase marked with a train sticker and steal it. What he doesn’t know, though, is that said briefcase belongs to a pair of British hit men named Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and that the contents include the recovered ransom for the kidnapped son (Logan Lerman) of a powerful crime lord known as The White Death.

Meanwhile, Kimura a.k.a. The Father (Andrew Koji) is on the bullet train because he is on a mission of vengeance – hunting down the person responsible for nearly killing his son by pushing the boy off of a building. What he doesn’t expect is that the individual he is looking for is a young woman identified as The Prince (Joey King), and that she has purposefully gotten him on the high speed rail with the intention of forcing him to execute an assassination attempt.

And while five killers sharing the space would be enough for most movies, Bullet Train actually has even more that pop in and surprise throughout the film’s runtime – and their roles are worth keeping as a secret pre-release.

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Bullet Train has a chaotic storyline, but the pieces properly connect as a fun puzzle.

Narratively speaking, Bullet Train is a messy movie to put together, as focus briskly ping-pongs between the different players, but everything stays in harmony as the film persistently finds ways to build on each protagonist’s arc. This is particularly cool later in the movie as different characters are drawn together from individual angles and instant conflict is generated from their simple interaction.

The film is at its best when it keeps things simple, but it does let things go off the rails at times (if you’ll pardon the pun). This is especially true as it gets into the third act and it tries to pull off stunts like one of the leads leaping from a platform on to the back of the train as it leaves a station; it’s both a problem for the “rules” of the universe and in its strained use of visual effects. The movie also frequently tries to get a bit too cute and Tarantino-esque with what are admittedly familiar-but-not-quite-stock characters – the most prominent example being an ongoing and quickly tiresome gag with Lemon explaining that he understands people through the lens of Thomas The Tank Engine.

Primarily, though, it’s a movie that is able to generate its entertainment with engaging and quippy dynamics between the members of the ensemble, both when they are talking out their issues and trying to kill one another.

David Leitch puts a lot of exciting and weird fights in a confined space, and is at its best when working with a “less is more” philosophy.

Coming from a stunt background, both as a performer and a coordinator, David Leitch’s bread and butter remains deftly and specifically choreographed action sequences, and Bullet Train proves to be a terrific challenge and opportunity for his skills. Regardless of where you are in the titular transport, space is not a luxury, and the best fights in the movie are those that are being fought only between the characters, but against the limitations provided by the location.

There are guns, knives and explosives in the mix, but Bullet Train also has some terrific “found item” moments that add spice and humor to the various showdowns, whether it’s a pocketed cell phone saving a character’s life from a blade, a laptop making for a solid cudgel, a water bottle making for a useful projectile, or a venomous snake showing up at a perfect moment.

Once again we see David Leitch work a special magic turning dramatic and comedic actors into badasses with slick and stylish moves, and while everyone shows off some terrific skills, it’s very much the Brad Pitt show at the end of the day.

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Brad Pitt’s joy in the role of Ladybug is palpable.

At the nexus of everything good in Bullet Train is Brad Pitt, who very clearly had a blast reuniting with David Leitch (who performed the actor’s stunts in films including Fight Club, The Mexican, Mr. And Mrs. Smith and Troy). He’s a joy to watch in action not just because of the talented craft he demonstrates in his physicality, but how he channels the psychology of the character. As we meet him, Ladybug is reluctantly getting back into his business following a number of important breakthroughs with his therapist, and Pitt does a fantastic job conveying that he doesn’t ever want to choose violence as a first answer – both via verbal pleas and defense-heavy moves. Action/comedy is a genre he should revisit a lot more often.

Bullet Train doesn’t aim to revolutionize hitman movies, but instead plays with a tongue-in-cheek vibe that lets you recognize the tropes and appreciate how the film plays with them. It’s a slick/goofy action movie that is both contained and wild, and a satisfying late summer release.

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Luck Review: A Spectacular Debut Film from Skydance Animation

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Luck Review: A Spectacular Debut Film from Skydance Animation

The world’s unluckiest woman enters a magical land to change the fortunes of a fellow orphan. Luck will make you smile and possibly shed a few tears. The big-budget, CGI animated fantasy shines a spotlight on needy children while telling a truly original story. An assortment of lucky critters and creatures dazzle in a spectacular setting. The highly imaginative narrative gives age-old superstitions a dynamic new spin. Luck is a brilliant first film from Skydance Animation.

Sam Greenfield (Eva Noblezada) reaches her eighteenth birthday with trepidation. She’s finally aged out of the foster care system. Sam never found her “forever family”. She spent her entire life living in orphanages. It doesn’t help that Sam has the worst luck. Everything she does or touches ends in abject disaster. Her only thoughts are for young Hazel (Adelynn Spoon), Sam’s roommate at the girls home. Sam has been set up with a job and tiny apartment. She has to stay in school and employed to remain housed.

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Sam’s first day at Marv’s (Lil Rel Howery) floral shop goes exactly as expected. She sadly eats dinner sitting on a sidewalk. Sam learns that Hazel’s weekend trip with a foster family was canceled. She gives half of her sandwich to a curious black cat. It scampers away but leaves a strange penny behind.

The following day is a revelation. Sam’s lucky penny changes everything. Her ecstatic mood sours when she loses the penny in spectacular fashion. Stewing on the sidewalk, Sam’s surprised when the black cat returns. She’s astonished when Bob (Simon Pegg) asks for his penny. The “travel penny” is the only way a creature from the Land of the Luck stays safe in the human world. She follows an unnerved Bob back through the portal to the Land of Luck. Sam has to find another lucky penny to help Hazel. Bob reluctantly agrees, but they have to be careful. Misdeeds end up in banishment to Bad Luck.

Related: Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octaine Thrill Ride

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The Land of Luck

The Land of Luck is an absolute joy to behold. Leprechauns, cats, pigs, and rabbits, lucky creatures, are the bureaucrats tasked with spreading good fortune. Bringing Sam in such a place is a recipe for absolute chaos. Bob, and his leprechaun assistant Gerry’s (Colin O’Donoghue), efforts to contain Sam’s bad luck will have audiences in stitches. I’m still chuckling at Sam’s “Latvian leprechaun” disguise; their harebrained excuse for why she’s so much bigger than everyone else.

Luck’s serious themes are artfully addressed. Sam’s lonely childhood, and her desperate efforts to change Hazel’s, brings a melancholic touch to the narrative. The film reminds us to not take love and family for granted. Every kid deserves care, nurturing, and a safe place to grow. It shouldn’t take luck or chance for a child to find a “forever home”.

Insert sigh here. Recent headlines concerning John Lasseter (Toy Story, Cars) will undoubtedly cloud this film’s release. The genius storyteller and animator behind Pixar’s success left to head Skydance Animation after awful “Me Too” allegations. He’s brought his incredible talent to Luck, and it shows. This wonderful film deserves to be judged on its own merits. Sometimes we must divorce ourselves from art and the personality of the artist.

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Luck is a production of Skydance Animation and Apple Original Films. It will have an exclusive Apple TV+ premiere on August 5th.

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