{"id":35273,"date":"2021-05-20T19:19:59","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T23:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=35273"},"modified":"2021-06-02T12:34:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T16:34:08","slug":"five-good-and-five-terrible-movies-heavily-influenced-by-home-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/20\/five-good-and-five-terrible-movies-heavily-influenced-by-home-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Good (and Five Terrible) Movies Heavily Influenced by \u201cHome Alone\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cDial Code Santa Claus (aka 3615 code P\u00e8re No\u00ebl)<\/a>,\u201d now available for collectors, is generally accepted as the original \u201cHome Alone<\/a>.\u201d Also with the reboot now in the works over at Disney+, I thought it\u2019d be fun to harp on Chris Columbus Christmas classic. Originally a huge hit when it arrived in theaters (my brother and I saw it in theaters with my dad three times!), the film inspired a huge slew of rip offs, and copycats from competing studios looking for their own piece of the pie.<\/p>\n

I thought it\u2019d be fun to look at four films heavily \u201cinspired\u201d by the classic that were Terrible and five that were actually quite good. There\u2019s a good chance I\u2019m missing a few, so feel free to let me know in the comments what I should have included.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Good: <\/strong>3 Ninjas (1992)<\/a>
\nOne of my childhood favorites, this combines martial arts fun with classic \u201cHome Alone\u201d antics and almost never misses a beat. Rocky, Colt, and Tum Tum are three brothers training in martial arts with their grandparents. When their grandfather is kidnapped, they use their skills to save him, all the while evading two very inept henchmen for hire. While not a masterpiece, \u201c3 Ninjas\u201d has a great time being as silly as possible, and takes a mid-way detour as the trio of brothers effortlessly beat the hell out of their would-be kidnappers.<\/p>\n

Terrible:<\/strong> Blank Check (1994)<\/a>
\nAn eleven year old boy, who doesn\u2019t want to earn his money, instead commits grand larceny by taking one million dollars from a group of criminals through a misplaced blank check. With said million dollars (still a ton of money in 1994!) he lives out his dreams of unsupervised fun. And he\u2019s\u2014uh—hit on by a woman in her twenties. There\u2019s, of course, the big bumbling criminals taken out by his gadgets scene in the climax. At least there\u2019s Tone Loc, and Miguel Ferrer. It doesn\u2019t get anymore nineties than that.<\/p>\n

Good:<\/strong> Remote (1993)<\/a>
\nCharles Band trots out his own \u201cHome Alone\u201d centered on a young boy whose obsession with remote controlled vehicles and figures helps him battle a trio of bumbling criminals. When he\u2019s stuck in a model home they\u2019re hiding out in after a robbery, he uses his vehicles to stop them, and also match wits with them. It\u2019s no masterpiece, but it gets the job done and centers on Charles Bands\u2019 odd obsession with small objects. I often wonder if this is in the same universe as “Demonic Toys<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Terrible:<\/strong> Richie Rich (1994)<\/a>
\nMacaulay Culkin seems like the natural casting choice for Richie Rich. Despite being a bit too old for the role, he does the best he can for what is basically a bland adaptation. The comics and cartoon never gave much room for artistic expression anyway, but the movie is more about exploring every child\u2019s fantasy (a personal McDonald\u2019s in the house?! Rad!). It plays fast and loose with the comics canon (is there even official canon?) and does its best to build a fun family comedy. Culkin plays the generally likable adolescent bajillionaire pretty well. He also beats up a bunch of criminals in the climax with his high priced gadgets a la \u201cHome Alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good:<\/strong> Dennis the Menace (1993)
\nA contemporary attempt to reboot the comic strip, \u201cDennis the Menace\u201d is a shockingly hilarious effort with a great cast. Pretty much following the premise of the comics and TV show, Dennis is stuck with Mr. Wilson after his parents have to leave town. In his efforts to do good for Mr. Wilson, he ends up making him miserable. Matthau is great as Mr. Wilson, and the movie offers some healthy laughs and chuckles along with pratfalls and Dennis inadvertently destroying a bumbling criminal played by Christopher Lloyd.<\/p>\n

Terrible:<\/strong> Baby\u2019s Day Out (1994)
\nA rich couple\u2019s toddler named Bink is targeted by a trio of inept thieves looking to keep it for ransom. But living in a universe guided by looney tunes principles, the thieves are brutally punished in their efforts to catch Bink result in disaster after disasters. Generally unpleasant, obnoxious, and loud, \u201cBaby\u2019s Day Out\u201d is one long series of goofy physical gags that not even the likes of Joe Mantegna, and Joey Pants can save. The movie is only really notable because of the small controversy involving the baby falling over in a bag that had to be edited in future releases.<\/p>\n

Good: <\/strong>You\u2019re Next (2011)<\/a>
\nAdam Wingard has taken to describing his many of his movies as odes to classic eighties movies, and has referred to \u201cYou\u2019re Next\u201d as a twisted, horror version of \u201cHome Alone.\u201d After being invited to a family reunion by her wealthy boyfriend, young Erin and his family are attacked by a pack of masked killers donning animal visages. Little do they know that Erin is a survivalist and proves to be their worst nightmare, as she turns the house in to a death trap to ensure her own escape. This movie is a masterpiece, and definitely fits in the ballpark of the \u201cHome Alone\u201d sub-sub-sub-genre.<\/p>\n

Terrible:<\/strong> Playing Dangerous 2 (1996)
\nKind of \u201cDie Hard\u201d meets \u201cHome Alone\u201d this blatant attempt at a cash in is a cheaply made, and absolutely horrendous adventure comedy. Kid genius Stewart Wolfe heads to college and lands a position replacing a programmer in a lab on some suspicious code. Things turn deadly and Stewart has to use his wiles and previous experience to survive, save the code and bring down terrorists. Even in its vain efforts to be different, the movie makes constant attempts at \u201cHome Alone\u201d style comedy and pratfalls and fails in absolutely every respect.<\/p>\n

Good:<\/strong> Camp Nowhere (1994)<\/a>
\nA bunch of pre-teens steal their parents\u2019 money, and then buy an abandoned campground, and pretty much do whatever they want. No, there\u2019s no masked maniac with a machete. They are, however, loosely supervised by Christopher Lloyd, and as they go wild, they soon realize that being without parents isn\u2019t everything it\u2019s cracked up to be. Admittedly with some nostalgia goggles, \u201cCamp Nowhere\u201d is a fun, funny movie, and packs in the required \u201cHome Alone\u201d mishaps, including a climax where the kids use impossible resources to fool their parents. Christopher Lloyd even chips in with some physical comedy.<\/p>\n

Terrible:<\/strong> Man of the House (1995)
\nA movie I hated even as a child, \u201cMan of the House\u201d centers on nineties star Jonathan Taylor Thomas who has to cope with the fact that his single mom is dating a new man. Chevy Chase plays the generally affable new man in her life who attempts to bond with him. But he makes it very hard by subjecting him to pranks and booby traps. There\u2019s also a finale where he and his step dad have to evade a group of mobsters while on a boy scout camp out in the woods, so it covers that trope proudly, if poorly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDial Code Santa Claus (aka 3615 code P\u00e8re No\u00ebl),\u201d now available for collectors, is generally accepted as the original \u201cHome Alone.\u201d Also with the reboot now in the works over at Disney+, I thought it\u2019d be fun to harp on Chris Columbus Christmas classic. Originally a huge hit when it arrived in theaters (my brother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[71,219,340,2740,580],"class_list":["post-35273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-list-junkies","tag-adventure","tag-comedy","tag-family","tag-home-alone","tag-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35273"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35306,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35273\/revisions\/35306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}