Review - Home Alone 3 (1997)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. In 1997, writer/producer John Hughes, who wrote the original two Home Alone movies with Macaulay Culkin, Daniel Stern, and Joe Pesci, returned with a third film in the Home Alone series. The only film not set around the Christmas holiday, Home Alone 3 starred Alex D. Linz, Olek Krupa, Haviland Morris, Rya Kihlstedt, Lenny Von Dohlen, David Thornton, Kevin Kilner, Christopher Curry, Marian Seldes, and Scarlett Johansson, and was directed by Raja Gosnell, who was the editor of the final two Home Alone movies. 

        The movie introduces is to our main villains, which are a quartet of international criminals: Peter Beaupre, Alice Ribbons, Burton Jernigan, and Earl Unger. The four are hired by a terrorist organization to collect a specially designed missile chips capable of cloaking any missile from detection. The chips collected from an American military contractor in Silicon Valley, and place the chip inside of a remote control car, as a means of slipping the chip passed airport security. 

       Unfortunately, the bag containing the RC car is accidentally grabbed by an elderly woman named Mrs. Hess, who returns home on a flight from San Francisco to Chicago, so Beaupre and the others follow her to Chicago. We then catch up with Mrs. Hess, as she hands the RC car to a boy across the street as payment for his shoveling her driveway. The boy in question, Alex Pruitt, is s then forced to spend the next number of days at home, as he's caught a case of the chicken pox. 

        Beaupre and the others end up acquiring a vacant house on the block, and start searching each house in the neighborhood to find the RC car. Alex, trying to do the right thing, calls the police on the criminals, but they get away before the police arrive. This, unfortunately, means that the police are unable to catch the bad guys, and they have no reason to believe Alex's story. So, Alex decides to handle things himself, finding out that the bad guys are after the car Mrs. Hess gave him. Digging into the car, Alex finds the chip, and calls a local military recruiter to give him the code on the chip. 

        Luckily, the recruiter calls the FBI, who sends Agents Stuckey and Rogers to Chicago to apprehend the criminals and reclaim the chip. But, the four are already onto Alex, and they are not going to stop until they get the chip back from him. And, so, we get a montage of Alex setting up a bunch of traps around his house, many of which are way more elaborate than the ones Kevin came up with in the earlier Home Alone movies. 

      Of course, our four bad guys get nailed by Alex's various traps, and Alex is able to rescue Mrs. Hess, who was bound and gagged in her own garage, and she finally sees what a good kid Alex is, becoming more friendly and kindhearted towards him. The FBI, Alex's mother, and his older siblings arrive, the four crooks are arrested, and Alex turns over the missile chip to Agent Stuckey. And, when our four crooks end up in prison, we see that they ALL caught Alex's chicken pox. Whoops. 

        Home Alone 3 is far from the worst Home Alone movie, which we'll definitely be getting to in December for the 2024 edition of 12 Reviews of Christmas. However, it's not really good, either. Alex D. Linz is okay, and he does a decent job as the main kid in this movie. The parents are practically non-existent, but performed decently enough by both Haviland Morris and Kevin Kilner. Even Alex's older siblings, played by Seth Smith and Scarlett Johansson, didn't have a lot to do. The only characters that, aside from Alex, get the most to do are the bad guys. Olek Krupa, Rya Kihlstedt, Lenny Von Dohlen, and David Thornton are all hilarious as the bad guys, and bounce off each other really well. But, unfortunately, they're not quite as iconic as Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as the Wet Bandits. 

        The traps are, ultimately, the highlight of the movie for me. Seeing the various means that Alex takes down Beaupre and the other bad guys, including a lawn mower, a spring loaded boxing glove, and so forth, is kind of clever, and is the only connective tissue that this movie has to the Home Alone franchise. 

      Overall, this is definitely inferior to the original two Home Alone movies, but not quite the worst of the franchise, as that was still to come. I'm giving Home Alone 3 a rating of 2/5. 

        Alright guys, this is Chuck signing off, and I'll see you guys next time with my review of the Paramount/Nickelodeon comedy Snow Day.