Reviewed by: Stephanie Hanson
CONTRIBUTOR
Moral Rating: | Better than Average |
Moviemaking Quality: |
|
Primary Audience: | All Ages |
Genre: | Comedy |
Length: | 102 min. |
Year of Release: | 1997 |
USA Release: |
December 12, 1997 (wide) |
Featuring | Alex D. Linz, Scarlett Johansson, Rya Kihlstedt, Kevin Kilner, Haviland Morris |
Director | Raja Gosnell |
Producer | |
Distributor |
20th Century Studios, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company |
This fun, entertaining movie is almost as good as the orginal “Home Alone”. The family members are much nicer to one another than the mean—spiritedness that characterized the first movie.
When young Alex Pruitt clears snow from his dour, cheap neighbor’s driveway, she gives him a remote control car someone placed in one of her bags at the airport. Neither of them knows a special computer chip is hidden in the car, one that has been stolen from the Air Force and makes any air defense useless. The four international spies who were hired to steal the chip trace it to Alex’s block in Chicago.
Poor Alex comes down with the chicken pox and is confined to the house. He notices the four spies breaking into two different houses but by the time the police arrive the spies are gone. Now no one will believe little Alex and it’s up to him to save the chip and protect himself (which he does in a similar manner to the first two movies in this series.)
It’s refreshing to see a family treat each other with love and consideration and Alex is a wonderful example of a respectful child. This movie contains no profanity or rude phrases. The only nudity is a brief peek at a poster of a blonde woman used in one of Alex’s tricks and is very mild.
The one area parents will be concerned with is violence. This movie is not as violent as “Home Alone 2” but it does contain a lot of head-banging and slapstick comedy. Though this may be equivalent to a “Roadrunner” cartoon or a “Three Stooges” episode, parents will want to caution children about trying to copy these stunts. Violence in fiction can be very funny, but not in real life!