It’s been 19 years since we last got a good Home Alone movie – the still-pretty-fun Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (preferred to the original by Empire’s John Nugent, and probably nobody else in the world), which was eventually followed by a bunch of diminishing straight-to-DVD duds. Now, the franchise is under Disney’s control after the Fox takeover – and the latest attempt to revive the festive kid-versus-burglars adventure tale comes to Disney+ this November under the title Home Sweet Home Alone. This time, the kid is Jojo Rabbit’s Archie Yates, the burglars are Ellie Kemper and Rob Delaney, and the harried parents are Aisling Bea and Pete Holmes. Check out the trailer.
For anyone who grew up with the original films (read: everyone), there’s plenty that’ll be familiar here – an inexplicably huge family ventures on a lavish Christmas holiday (this time Japan), only to accidentally leave a meddling son (here, Yates' Max) at home. But if this one largely looks like an outright remake of the first film, there’s one key clue that this actually takes place in the continuity of the original movies: Devin Ratray returns as bullying older brother Buzz McCallister from the previous films, now a police officer. Elsewhere, the only other twist on the formula is that the burglars – Pam and Jeff – appear to be a couple, and are perhaps more reluctant criminals than the Wet Bandits. But otherwise, it’s business as usual – painful booby traps, precocious kid quips, and slapstick aplenty.
This one’s directed by Dan Mazer, from a screenplay by SNL duo Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell. There are plenty of great people involved here – so here’s hoping this one will enter the regular Christmas rotation alongside the first two films. We’ll find out in exactly a month’s time, when the film hits Disney+ on 12 November, aka the much-anticipated Disney+ day.