Home Alone (1990)

Home Alone is one of those movies that should be on everyone’s list of classic holiday movies. It’s tradition, it’s a must, it’s a friggin’ travesty if you don’t watch it at least once over the holiday season. 

Now, Home Alone is not a traditional action movie, but it does have some robber ass kicking in it by an 8-year-old boy, and I can write a review for it because, as I’ve stated before, this is my website and I am the boss and can do whatever I want. I’m not going to give a plot summary for Home Alone. If you’re reading this, you know what it’s about.

Watching Home Alone as an adult is a different experience in a lot of ways from watching it as a kid. As a kid, I always thought Kevin’s family was really unfair and shitty to him. As an adult… well, I still think that. The changes I’m more cognizant of are Kevin’s heightened reactions to everything- he has plenty of Big Feelings at the beginning of this movie. When you’re a kid, everything is exaggerated; it’s all either the end of the world or the coolest thing in the universe, every older sibling is a mortal enemy or a life-saving hero, and the friendly neighborhood sidewalk salter just has to be the friendly neighborhood mass murderer because, I mean, shovel too big, man! Shovel way too big!

With an all-star cast including Mac Culkin, Joe Pesci, Catherine O’Hara and the late great John Candy cameo-ing his ass off, an unforgettable score from the legendary John Williams, and one of the greatest comedy finales of any film, ever, Home Alone is one holiday classic that I keep revisiting and keep enjoying.

Time until robber related action: ~42 minutes, and I think I am being generous with that estimate.

Bad guys: The Wet Bandits

Best Line: “You guys give up, or are ya thirsty for more?”

Best trap: Ohhh, so many good ones to choose from, but I am going to go with the blow torch incident. After many failed attempts to enter the house, Wet Bandit # 1, Harry,  decides to stop messing around by kicking in the backdoor of house… to bad the door was attached to a blowtorch. It gets set off and sets the poor Harry’s head on fire. He goes running from the house and jumps head first into the snow bank, emerging with a freshly-scorched scalp that would make Freddy Kreuger say “lookin’ kinda burnt, bro.”

Best narrow escape: Kevin is face to face with the Wet Bandits. He turns to go up the stairs to the third floor of the house and Marv grabs his pant leg. Up on the stairs crawls the family pet tarantula. Kevin grabs the 8-legged freaky thing and drops it on Marv’s face, who then proceeds to let out one of the most incredible high-pitched screams ever put to film, letting Kevin get away while he deals with the eight-legged freak making itself comfy on his face.

Rating: ½ kids in holiday sweaters screaming for the film’s action level. Don’t get me wrong, I love this movie but it only has about 15 minutes of good robber asskicking action in the whole movie. There is not even one kill or explosion. I think they could have found a way to work one of those in. Who would have thought a PG movie called Home Alone starring a little kid wouldn’t have any kills in it?

Disclaimer: Just because I am the Action Flick Chick and love action movies does not mean I condone real life violence in any way. Everyone has their own shit to deal with, be nice to each other.