Home Alone 2

Home Alone 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Director: Chris Columbus. Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O’Hara, Tim Curry.

I ended 2020 watching “home Alone” and now I start 2021 with its sequel.

Let’s all be honest, this is basically the same film all over again: same beats, same devices and dynamics, same sort of characters, same jokes, same ending, same music.If this isn’t the perfect metaphor for how this new year feels (same old same old) then I don’t know what is…

If you love the first one you’re bound to like this one too and gloss over all the similarities and lack of originality. After all little Macauley is still very likeable and even though he’s grown a bit, he hasn’t (yet) lost his charm. However if you’re looking really closely, you’ll find that actually the jokes are a little bit more forced and slightly less funny and the fact that the film goes through the motions makes it feel not as fresh and surprising as the first one was.

The cheese factor believe it or not is even more pronounced in this one (I didn’t think the pigeon lady worked as well as the old guy in the first) and John Williams must have written this score in his sleep as it seems virtually identical to the original. Tim Curry is a nice little addition as the slimy hotel manager, but alas there’s very little of him. There’s also a vomit inducing cameo from Trump (who apparently forced himself into this film) which today is as distracting as ever.

Having said all that, it’s still an enjoyable ride, especially if you are a kid, with New York serving as a beautiful backdrop (with a freaky shot from the Twin towers which made us all shiver a bit). My 8 year old son laughed out loud all the way through (though some of the “slapstick” violence this time felt a bit strong, nastier and less cartoony than last time) and seemed to have the time of his life. They obviously carried on making another sequel after this (which we won’t be watching) but by the time they got to it they had lost their star and the film suffered from it proving that little Culkin was really the magic ingredient behind it all.