I wouldn’t necessarily say I am a completionist when it comes to, well anything really. But I do get some satisfaction knowing I have now seen all the ‘Home Alone’ films, mostly because it means I have literally no reason to ever watch past the first two ever again. I am rounding the franchise up with the 5th instalment, Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012) and I again went into the film completely blind. My only hope was that it would be better than the fourth film, and while that isn’t hard to do on the surface of things, I wasn’t exactly holding out hope. The film follows the Baxter family who have just moved from California to a new home in Maine. The youngest, Finn (Christian Martyn), is convinced the house is haunted and set up traps to catch the supposed ghosts. However, although the traps are being sprung it is not by ghosts but by a group of thieves led by Sinclair (Malcolm McDowell) who is hell-bent on retrieving a long-lost painting that he believes to be hidden in the house.
I want to start this review by saying that I don’t think this film is anywhere near as bad as some online rating of it will have you believe. I don’t want to be misconstrued about this; the film is still pretty bad. But it isn’t anywhere close to being as bad as Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House (2002) and is about on par with both Home Alone 3 (1997) and Home Sweet Home Alone (2021), and I would argue is actually superior to both of those films even if that is saying very, very little. But why, you may be asking, is this film better. Well, it is quite simple really. Malcolm McDowell. If you look at his IMDB, not only is the man prolific but who is in so much random stuff, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been overly surprised to see him turn up here, but I am all for it. Even in something like this he has such a screen presence that you can’t help but be entertained when he is on screen. Aside from him, there are some genuinely quite funny moments in the film. It gets a little ridiculous at the end and some of the situations are worth at least a chuckle, and the delivery on some of the dialogue is also pitch-perfect and leads to some genuine laughs.
Apart from this, there isn’t much I can really say that is great about the film. The acting is fine and is shot competently, even if some of the editing is a little off. Most of this comes down to the fact that it is a made for TV movie and so it has several fades to black that I assume leads into the adverts. But the main issue is that it is mostly just quite dull. I felt the drag of the runtime for almost the whole runtime. But the biggest issue with this is that the obvious break-in scene is pretty uninspired. Looking back, I can hardly remember any of the booby traps now and I only attached it a couple of hours ago. And that is literally all I have to say. Honestly, there is very little else to say about this film.
This film is probably the third-best film in this series, mostly because of Malcolm McDowell. It is a very boring and dull film for the most part and without him, it would be a complete waste of time. Even with him involved, I am not going to be recommending this one for you to watch. Now I can feel my booster jab about to kick my ass so I am going to hop into bed and die.
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