![]() He's such a confident and gifted little actor that I'd like to see him in a story I could care more about. I'm sure he got lots of help from director Chris Columbus, but he's got the stuff to begin with. He has lots of challenging acting scenes, and he's up to them. Culkin is the little boy who co-starred with John Candy in " Uncle Buck," and here he has to carry almost the whole movie. What works in the other direction, however, and almost carries the day, is the gifted performance by young Macaulay Culkin, as Kevin. The plot is so implausible that it makes it hard for us to really care about the plight of the kid. When Kevin's parents discover they've forgotten him, they find it impossible to get anyone to follow through on their panicked calls - if anyone did so, the movie would be over. But in the contrived world of this movie, the only neighbor is an old coot who is rumored to be the Snow Shovel Murderer, and the phone doesn't work. ![]() He might also try calling someone, or asking a neighbor for help. So he makes the best of it.Ī real kid would probably be more frightened than this movie character, and would probably cry. When he wakes up later that morning, the house is empty. 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. The movie opens in the Chicago suburbs with a houseful of people on the eve of a big family Christmas vacation in Paris. What I didn't enjoy was the subplot involving the burglars ( Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), who are immediately spotted by little Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), and made the targets of his cleverness. 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. This time, he strays so far from his premise that the movie suffers. 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. The movie's screenplay is by John Hughes, who sometimes shows a genius for remembering what it was like to be young.
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