June 26th, Movie 27

“This is garbage. I don’t know why they are trying to remake the classics. They’re never as good as the originals.” — Jeff McKenzie (Rob Delaney), Home Sweet Home Alone.

You know, this is never a good sign when a movie makes a meta reference about how bad films that try to remake classics are, when that is exactly what your film is trying to do.

I did not watch this last year when Home Sweet Home Alone came out on Disney +, but, if I had, this atrocious film would have been atop the Top 30 Worst Films of the Year, over taking Tom and Jerry.

We know the general story. Little kid, this time named Max (Archie Yates), gets left behind by his family who are on their way for vacation over seas (this time to Japan) and he has to defend his house against two intruders.

Now, most of the time we have seen this concept, the intruders are criminals looking to rob the house, or to get revenge on the kid. This time however is a little different.

The intruders are a married couple Jeff and Pam McKenzie (Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper) who are trying to retrieve a rare doll they think Max has stolen. Instead of being reasonable and, I don’t know, calling the police, they decide to break into the house to find the doll. This leads to a series of non-creative yet violent assaults on the McKenzies.

It is completely full of crap and a horrendous movie.

I do want to say that I do not blame the kid, Archie Yates. Archie was great in Jo Jo Rabbit and he has plenty of upsides to his career. He just should fire those people who got him this script and had him star in this movie. They do not have your back.

Home Sweet Home Alone is a mess. If you have some kind of morbid curiosity about it, it is on Disney + but otherwise, stay away.