Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York; comedy, USA, 1992; D: Chris Columbus, S: Macauley Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O'Hara, John Heard, Tim Curry, Rob Schneider, Brenda Fricker, Devin Ratray, Hillary Wolf, Kieran Culkin, Ally Sheedy, Donald Trump

Here we go again: the large McCallister family is again traveling for Christmas, this time to Miami, and they again displace Kevin (11) who mistakenly boarded a plane for New York. Alone in the big city, Kevin uses his dad's credit card to make a hotel reservation and stay overnight. However, on the street, he meets the two burglars again, Marv and Harry, and overhears that they plan to rob a toy store for Christmas. Kevin thus foils their plan and lures them into an abandoned apartment where he sets up numerous booby traps for them. Thanks to a help from a pigeon lady, Kevin manages to beat Harry and Marv who get arrested by the police. He is then reunited with his family.

The same jokes, just a different background: the inevitable sequel to the highest grossing comedy film of its time, "Home Alone", managed to encompass the entire crew from the 1st film, yet it offered very little of new ideas or innovations to justify the continuation of the storyline. The opening act is arguably the best, managing to actually conjure up two surprisingly good jokes: Kevin records his own voice on a tape recorder and then plays it in slow motion, to make his voice sound slow and deep, like that one of an adult, in order to make a phone reservation of a hotel room. He also has a charming scene when he uses the hotel pool wearing a giant swimsuit. Unfortunately, the story quickly loses its power and gets trapped into routine, with too many scenes recycled from the 1st film (the black and white gangster film is again used to trick people into thinking its a real person talking; Kevin again bonds with an outsider who was ostensibly scary, but turns out actually a kind person, in this case, a pigeon lady). While the action finale was suppose to be the highlight, in reality it proved to be misguided: looking from today's perspective, all the numerous traps set up to hurt and maim burglars Harry and Marv now seem almost like a torture chamber from the "Saw" movies. Not only that, but they are not funny. Just weird, especially when Daniel Stern is exaggerating with his insane screaming. The only good bit is actually when hundreds of pigeons "attack" Harry and Marv who are covered with bread crumbs. A solid, yet spasmodic sequel. 

Grade:+