Home alone 2 roger ebert

He was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. In the process, we place the people in our lives into compartments and define how they should behave to our advantage.

I have a feeling that "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" is going to be an enormous box office success, but include me out. I didn't much like the first film, and I don't much like this one, with its sadistic little hero who mercilessly hammers a couple of slow-learning crooks. Nor did I enjoy the shameless attempt to leaven the mayhem by including a preachy subplot about the Pigeon Lady of Central Park. Call me hardhearted, call me cynical, but please don't call me if they make " Home Alone 3. Some of the gags are lifted directly from old color cartoons, and in spirit what we're looking at here are Road Runner adventures, with the crooks playing the role of Wile E. As the two hapless mopes fall down ladders and get slammed by bricks and pound bags of cement, and covered with glue and paint and birdseed, you can hear the cackling of the old Looney Tunes heroes in the background. And just like in the cartoons, the crooks are never really hurt; they bounce back, dust themselves off, bend their bones back into shape and are ready for the next adventure.

Home alone 2 roger ebert

While a sequel typically strives to give audiences more of what they previously got with a little something extra, 's Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is quite literally the same film all over again. Excluding a few key details, particularly the titular setting, Kevin McCallister's Macaulay Culkin second solo outing took the comedy franchise to exaggerated heights by dropping the precocious youngster smack dab in the middle of America's biggest city. High jinks and hilarity ensue with Kevin navigating his way through an intimidating world and yet again facing off against perhaps the most incompetent pair of burglars to ever hit the silver screen. Sound familiar? Hitting theaters just two years after its wildly popular predecessor, Home Alone 2 went on to some major box office success, but received mixed reviews. Regarding the latter, a common complaint among critics was how the film was simply a rehash of everything that made the first film so memorable and entertaining. But while this criticism of sequels is generally well-founded and understandable, especially in the decades since the film's release, which saw sequels and franchises become much more commonplace in filmmaking, this particular sequel relishes the opportunity to tell the same story, albeit in a way that traverses cartoonish and absurd territory. Home Alone 2 is so indulgent in its gleeful insistence on repeating itself that one can't help but assume the repetition is the point. Instead of giving fans something new and fresh , writer John Hughes and director Chris Columbus employed a level of self-referential awareness with their constant callbacks to the first film. One year after Kevin McCallister was left home alone and had to defeat a pair of bumbling burglars, he accidentally finds himself stranded in New York City - and the same criminals are not far behind. On the morning they're due to travel to Florida for the Christmas holidays and having slept through their alarm because of electronic negligence, the McCallister parents wake up startled and synchronously spout off one of Home Alone 2 's most emblematic remarks: "We did it again! Right off the bat, audiences are treated to a familiar set up. Christmas is fast-approaching and, as one of many children in an extended family, Kevin McCallister is still the runt of the litter who gets the short end of the stick.

Ennio Nell Minow.

Being left home alone, when you were a kid, meant hearing strange noises and being afraid to look in the basement - but it also meant doing all the things that grownups would tell you to stop doing, if they were there. Things like staying up to watch Johnny Carson, eating all the ice cream, and sleeping in your parents' bed. And they're the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people. The movie's screenplay is by John Hughes , who sometimes shows a genius for remembering what it was like to be young. His best movies, such as " Sixteen Candles ," " The Breakfast Club ," " Ferris Bueller's Day Off " and " Planes, Trains and Automobiles ," find a way to be funny while still staying somewhere within the boundaries of remote plausibility. This time, he strays so far from his premise that the movie suffers. If "Home Alone" had limited itself to the things that might possibly happen to a forgotten 8-year-old, I think I would have liked it more.

It follows Kevin McCallister as he is separated from his family on their holiday vacation to Florida, this time in New York City where he has another encounter with the Wet Bandits after their escape from prison. Hughes finished writing the film by February , after signing a six-picture deal with 20th Century Fox. Culkin's return was confirmed in May, and the rest of the cast was finalized soon after. Principal photography took place between December and May , and was done on location in Illinois and New York, including at the Rockefeller Center and the original World Trade Center. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the performances while criticizing its darker tone and violence, as well as its similarities to the first film. A standalone sequel with a new cast, Home Alone 3 , was released in Their youngest son, Kevin, views Florida as contradictory to Christmas, due to its tropical climate and lack of Christmas trees.

Home alone 2 roger ebert

While a sequel typically strives to give audiences more of what they previously got with a little something extra, 's Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is quite literally the same film all over again. Excluding a few key details, particularly the titular setting, Kevin McCallister's Macaulay Culkin second solo outing took the comedy franchise to exaggerated heights by dropping the precocious youngster smack dab in the middle of America's biggest city. High jinks and hilarity ensue with Kevin navigating his way through an intimidating world and yet again facing off against perhaps the most incompetent pair of burglars to ever hit the silver screen. Sound familiar? Hitting theaters just two years after its wildly popular predecessor, Home Alone 2 went on to some major box office success, but received mixed reviews. Regarding the latter, a common complaint among critics was how the film was simply a rehash of everything that made the first film so memorable and entertaining. But while this criticism of sequels is generally well-founded and understandable, especially in the decades since the film's release, which saw sequels and franchises become much more commonplace in filmmaking, this particular sequel relishes the opportunity to tell the same story, albeit in a way that traverses cartoonish and absurd territory.

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When the family loads into a van and is about to leave for the airport the following morning, they nearly forget about Kevin again until the youngster pops his head up from behind the front seat. Catherine O'Hara as Kate. If he believes half of what he says, he'd give the crooks a break. Most of the live-action attempts to duplicate animation have failed, because when flesh-and-blood figures hit the pavement, we can almost hear the bones crunch, and it isn't funny. Namespaces Page Discussion. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in There are relatives and kids everywhere, and when the family oversleeps and has to race to the airport, Kevin is somehow overlooked in the shuffle. Culkin is the little boy who co-starred with John Candy in " Uncle Buck ," and here he has to carry almost the whole movie. I repent. Here Sheila O'Malley. John Heard as Peter. Like the first film, this sequel is quite self-aware and makes a habit of breaking the fourth wall. They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. MacAulay Culkin as Kevin.

One year after Kevin McCallister was left home alone and had to defeat a pair of bumbling burglars, he accidentally finds himself stranded in New York City - and the same criminals are not f

On the contrary, it's the comfort and assurance of the formulaic narrative and tropes that viewers seek in revisiting the film. Home Alone 2 is so indulgent in its gleeful insistence on repeating itself that one can't help but assume the repetition is the point. And last but not least, two bumbling burglars cross Kevin's path unfortunately for them and are subjected to another level of violence that's sidesplitting in its savagery. Many of these callbacks that take off in new directions occur in the film's hilarious third act when Kevin faces off against Harry and Marv in a dilapidated townhouse. Because we cannot force them to follow our desires, we deal with projections of them created in our minds. When little Kevin Macaulay Culkin taunts them "Hey! Things like staying up to watch Johnny Carson, eating all the ice cream, and sleeping in your parents' bed. The movie opens in the Chicago suburbs with a houseful of people on the eve of a big family Christmas vacation in Paris. So he makes the best of it. Like the first film, this sequel is quite self-aware and makes a habit of breaking the fourth wall. Common sense dictates that no human being would survive this level of assault. I confess I do not know. Image via 20th Century Studios.