Home Alone: The Holiday Heist

aka Home Alone 5

2012
Written by Aaron Ginsburg and Wade McIntyre
Directed by Peter Hewitt

No. NO! NOOOOOOoooOOOoooOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Home Alone: The Holiday Heist is the fifth Home Alone movie. This will come to a shock to some of you, who will be spitting out your coffee or vodka or coffee with vodka while declaring “There was a Home Alone 4?!?” or even “There was a Home Alone 3!?!?!” I am here to tell you that, yes, yes there was. Home Alone 3 was a sequel in name only that featured a brand new kid named Alex Pruitt who battled a group of thieves after a microchip in a car he got. Home Alone 4 is a made-for-tv flick that was originally a pilot for a potential Home Alone tv series, it did feature Kevin McCallister and his family (though several of his siblings were missing) and his dad dumped his mom for some hot young tail. Most notably, French Stewart stars as the thief Marv, who returns with a new gang to harass Kevin while trying to kidnap a prince.

You’re so square baby I don’t care

Now that that is out of the way, it’s time to get to Home Alone 5! We return to the classic formula of a kid being left home alone. If you ignore that his teenage sister is also at home with him. Art thieves break in and young Finn Baxter (that’s his real name!) sets traps to stop them as he sees life as a video game. Just when you think this made-for-tv film might have something cool to say about modern children growing up in electronic culture, it doesn’t bother. In fact, it doesn’t bother to do much of anything except role through the numbers, which is disappointing, but not unexpected. What was unexpected is some of the traps are actually funny, they just needed a whole lot more of them. Those few moments of brightness are not enough to make Home Alone: The Holiday Heist the holiday classic of the new millennium. But I hope they make Home Alone 6, and set it at the North Pole where a kid defends Santa’s house from terrorists. Because that’s just crazy enough to work.

I don’t know what to say that won’t make this picture any worse than it looks…

Finn Baxter (Christian Martyn) – Finn Baxter sounds like one of those made up names for kids from British stories no one ever has. But this kid has that name and he does what kids do, spending all his time on video games and freaking out about ghosts. Which is sort of a shame as he’s a regular Rube Goldberg. Eventually he sets up ridiculous traps to defend his house and sister. Alexis Baxter (Jodelle Ferland) – Bratty teenage daughter of the Baxter clan who cares about nothing except texting texting texting. Except maybe freaking out Finn as he’s easily scared. Jodelle Ferland might be familiar to Twilight fans, and does a convincing job as an annoyed teenager. Catherine and Curtis Baxter (Ellie Harvie and Doug Murray) – Could there be any less effective parents in the world than these two? At least mom has a career that is important, dad just bumbles around and neither do any sort of disciplining at all besides complaining. Mom does go into Mom Terror mode when she’s trying to get back home to her kids, but that’s about the parents do besides leave. Sinclair (Malcolm McDowell) – Art thief who has spent decades tracking down the lost Edvard Munch work The Widow, because his great-grandmother is painted in the portrait. Hey, giving the bad guys back stories that make them not so bad isn’t that smart of an idea. Also note that McDowell can kill Captain Kirk but can’t handle a little kid. Mr. Hughs (Eddie Steeples) – A black guy in a Home Alone movie! Who is a thief…. Huh. Okay. Hughs is the safecracker who also eats when he’s nervous. Jessica (Debi Mazar) – The third thief, Jessica is obsessed over the prior safecracker Steve, who she got romantically involved with that ended badly. I was hoping she was romantically involved with Marv or something, but no such luck… Mason (Peter DaCunha) – Neighbor kid who can tell you all sorts of things about snow and how snow is awesome and snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow. Simon Hassler (Bill Turnbull) – Finn’s gaming buddy who no one knew was a college kid who played games all day until they voice chatted right before the house was attacked.

I don’t give a crap what “Rosebud” is and it’s certainly not in this basement!

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