Matt’s Confused Reviews: Home Alone 2

Picking up some time after the wacky first film, this time Kevin!!! (Macaulay Culkin) actually makes it to the airport with his massive, massive family. They are, again, running late and, in all the mania of being late, don’t notice that Kevin!!! has got on the wrong plane.

So as the family head off for Christmas in Prague Kevin!!! finds himself headed for New York City. Rather than alert the authorities he checks himself in to an expensive hotel and then heads to the nearest toy store. Boys will be boys.

The rest of the family arrive in Prague and realise that Kevin!!! is missing. “Kevin!!!” says his mother. They speak to the police, who say they’ll give the airport a quick bell and recommend that they stay in a local hostel. “Very hospitable” says Kevin!!!’s cheap-skate uncle “someone should pay for me to come here every year. And anyway, I’m a mean spirited cheap-skate uncle, I don’t even like Kevin!!!”

Kevin!!! is in a toy shop when he notices Vinny (Joe Pesci), a guy who tried to burgle his house in the first film, hanging out with Ray Liotta and Robert Deniro. He overhears Vinny planning to rob the store “I come in dressed as a clown? Like I’m here to fucking amuse you? What the fuck makes me so fucking funny? You dress as a clown to distract the security so I can steal some toys, Henry. Then we’ll sell them on the black market and make sure that Paulie gets a cut”

Kevin!!! is upset about this as he figures the store is probably planning to give those toys to crippled, dying orphans. He decides to set up some booby traps in the shop. He noses about for ideas for a bit but then notices that the police are storming the building. It turns out that Ray Liotta has ratted out Robert Deniro.

“Damn it” Says Vinny “Now Ray Liotta will be going into the witness protection program and I’ll probably get shot through the head so my mother can’t even give me an open casket funeral. That’s it. I’m quitting being a gangster to become a well meaning but slightly unconventional lawyer. My cousin, Ralph Macchio, needs a lawyer at the moment because he has been wrongly accused of murder due to a bizarre coincidence involving similar cars. I’ll go and help him out”. Kevin!!! decides that Vinny is a good guy now and so offers to go with him.

Meanwhile in Prague, Kevin!!!’s cheap-skate uncle has planned a day out for the family. “I just met this cheeky Jap out there” he says (he’s a racist as well as a cheap-skate who hates him own nephew) “he talked funny, almost like he’d learned what to say phonetically, but he’s offering to take us all to a museum. For free!” The others agree to go and so they all bundle into a van and are driven to the museum. “The driver of this van looks just like Takeshi Miike” muses Kevin!!!’s mother. She’s a big fan of Audition.

They arrive at a warehouse which is really battered-looking, hardly like a museum at all. Then they all get split up and violently tortured to death in different rooms by people have paid extra for Americans. “Oh” muses Kevin!!!’s cheap-skate uncle “that must be why that attractive smack addict girl said we were all her bitches”. Kevin!!!’s mother escapes but trips whilst running away and breaks two of her fingers off. She hops on a train and goes back to America.

Kevin!!!, meanwhile, has helped Vinny get his cousin Ralph Macchio out of prison just in time to fight in a karate tournament against the Cobra Kai. Ralph Macchio gets to the final, despite all of the dirty tactics employed by his rivals. Vinny tells him to put some wax on his hair, but then thinks it looks silly and so makes him take the wax off. Then the awkward looking blonde kid in the Cobra Kai who is fighting Ralph Macchio in the final laughs because he is planning to cheat.

Kevin!!! decides to set up booby traps for him. When the awkward looking blonde kid walks into the ring a tin of paint swings down into his face. It shatters his nose and causes his brain to bleed. As he cannot now fight, because he is dead, Ralph Macchio is the winner and gets a big trophy. Then Kevin!!!’s mother turns up and it starts snowing, meaning it truly is Christmas. How lovely.

All in all, I found Home Alone 2 better than the first one but very uneven in tone. I’d give it 62 stars out of 100.