{"id":7712,"date":"2024-10-30T22:59:06","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T02:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7712"},"modified":"2024-10-30T22:59:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T02:59:06","slug":"home-alone-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/30\/home-alone-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Alone 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Home Alone 3<\/strong> (1997)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th<\/sup> Century Fox\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, slapstick violence, mild sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Raja Gosnell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John Hughes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nick Glennie-Smith\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Julio Macat\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 12, 1997 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Alex D. Linz, Olek Krupa, Rya Kihlstedt, Lenny von Dohlen, David Thornton, Marian Seldes, Kevin Kilner, Seth Smith, Scarlett Johansson, Christopher Curry, Baxter Harris, James Saito.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $30.6M (US)\/$79M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Okay, I have to admit that Home Alone 3<\/strong> isn\u2019t a complete stinker. It\u2019s actually better than I remember it being when I saw it at an advance screening on a Saturday morning in December \u201997. I\u2019m trying to decide whether or not it counts as a holiday movie since the action takes place right AFTER Christmas. Aw, what the hell. I\u2019ll call it a holiday movie. Why not? After all, the franchise has more or less become synonymous with Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although Home Alone 3<\/strong> follows the same basic formula as its two predecessors, it\u2019s a completely different movie with an entirely new set of characters. Other than title and location (Chicago, Illinois), it has NOTHING to do with the first two movies. By this time, 17YO Macaulay Culkin was too for his long-suffering parents to worry about him being left home alone. The producers brought in a new child actor Alex D. Linz (One Fine Day) to replace him. Original director Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire) also decided to sit this one out. First-timer Raja Gosnell (The Smurfs), who served as editor on the first two movies, takes the directorial reins for this mildly amusing installment of the popular franchise.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like I said, Home Alone 3<\/strong> isn\u2019t too bad. It\u2019s relatively harmless and will likely please the grade school audience for which it\u2019s intended. I\u2019m going to venture a guess and say it\u2019s probably a lot better than the made-for-TV sequel Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House (2002). I haven\u2019t seen it nor do I ever intend to. I won\u2019t waste anybody\u2019s time by describing it, but the mere fact that it stars French Stewart (3rd Rock from the Sun) should tell you everything you need to know about it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0John Hughes, who wrote and produced the first two Home Alone movies, has come up with a slightly more sophisticated set of villains for this installment. Of course, they\u2019re still no match for an 8YO boy determined to protect his home.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As the movie opens, a quartet of internationally wanted criminals has stolen a computer chip that renders missiles incapable of being detected by radars. They hide it in a toy remote car to sneak it past airport security, but lose it at the San Francisco airport when grumpy old Mrs. Hess (Seldes, Town & Country) mistakes it for her own bag (the two bags are identical, of course).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The four baddies- Peter (Krupa, Blue Streak), Alice (Kihlstedt, Nashville), Burton (von Dohlen, Electric Dreams) and Earl (Thornton, The Notebook)- follow her to Chicago and start systematically searching every home on her block for the valuable computer chip. They didn\u2019t count on young Alex Pruitt (Linz), home from school with the chicken pox and alone because of two working parents. The toy car is in his possession. He received it as payment for shoveling Mrs. Hess\u2019 walk. He spots Peter in one of his neighbor\u2019s homes while looking through his telescope and immediately calls the police. Peter and company are gone by the time the police arrive and they write it off as a crank phone call. When it becomes clear that nobody will believe him, Alex takes matters into his own hands and tries to catch the bad guys on camera. Eventually, they figure out what\u2019s going on and decide to go after the child. Naturally, they get more than they bargained for when they attempt to gain entry into Alex\u2019s home. The kid has the place booby-trapped to the teeth. The villains are about to gain a whole new understanding of extreme physical pain.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t expect to enjoy Home Alone 3<\/strong> as much as I did when I sat myself down to watch it again after all these years. What I mean to say is that I didn\u2019t hate it. When I referred to it earlier as harmless, I meant that it won\u2019t give you a migraine over its utter lack of originality or the general stupidity of it all. It\u2019s a live-action cartoon with one small Road Runner and four Wile E. Coyotes. Some of it is kind of funny, but I can\u2019t help but think about the impressionable children who might watch it at some point. I shudder to think that some dopey kid might attempt to try to recreate some of these booby traps at home. Hell, I wish that I had thought of these things as a kid. It would have been a sure fire way to keep my little brother out of my room. LOL! I kid you, of course, I\u2019m not a complete maniac.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the lead, Linz is just a bit annoying. His character is a prime example of movie kids not talking like real kids. I mean, what 8YO even knows the phrase \u201cfigments of my imagination\u201d? The late Hughes might have had an ear for the way teenagers talk, but he really should have listened closer to preadolescents. After being scolded by the police and his mother (Morris, Sixteen Candles) for falsely reporting a crime, he says, \u201cExcuse me for being a good citizen.\u201d That sounds like something a teenager would say.<\/p>\n

\u00a0On the upside, the friendship that ultimately develops between Alex and Mrs. Hess is rather sweet. Home Alone 3<\/strong> also marks an early screen appearance by a young Scarlett Johansson who I can only surmise did this one for the money. Having burst onto the scene a year earlier with a brilliant performance in the indie comedy\/drama Manny & Lo, it really seemed like a major step down for the teen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The villains are your typical buffoons who constantly find themselves outwitted by a resourceful child. Four idiots against one smart kid, talk about an uneven match-up! By the way, I always crack up when the one baddie squeaks, \u201cYou smashed my winkie!\u201d after one particularly painful episode. At best, Home Alone 3<\/strong> is moderate entertainment that won\u2019t drain too many IQ points. You might not be too sorry that you watched it, but you\u2019ll probably be embarrassed for laughing at it.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Home Alone 3 (1997)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, slapstick violence, mild sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Raja Gosnell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John Hughes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nick Glennie-Smith\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Julio Macat\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 12, 1997 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Alex D. Linz, Olek Krupa, Rya Kihlstedt, Lenny von Dohlen, David Thornton, Marian Seldes, Kevin Kilner, Seth Smith, Scarlett […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-holiday-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Home-Alone-3-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7831,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7712\/revisions\/7831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}