A new trailer for Home Sweet Home Alone has been released, and it appears to be a sequel that is also a carbon copy of an original that doesn’t need to be improved.
The trailer for the Disney+ film Home Sweet Home Alone is quite impressive. In it, a large and chaotic family ties themselves in knots in preparation for a trip to Tokyo, only to discover that they have accidentally left one of their children behind. While they rush back to their house. The boy is left to fend for himself – a risk that is only increased when two cunning burglars choose his house to rob. What follows is an orgy of cartoonish violence as the abandoned boy jerry-rigs a variety of household items to inflict the most damage on the intruders. Brilliant.
What if Home Alone is Home Alone umm?
Because that’s exactly what this appears to be. Home Sweet Home Alone, based on the trailer, is Home Alone. The characters are identical. The plot is identical. Anyone who has seen the original 1990 version of Home Alone will recognise everything about it right away. The problem, of course, is that the original 1990 version of Home Alone was a perfect film acted by a perfect cast from a perfect script. Unless Home Sweet Home Alone is the culmination of a decades-long scientific expedition to mill fine grains of new perfection that were previously invisible to the naked eye, it’s difficult to see the point of it.
The official synopsis of Disney’s Home Sweet Home Alone isn’t much better. Based on the trailer, “Max Mercer is a playful and creative young boy. Who has been abandoned, while his family is in Japan on holiday? So, when a married couple trying to regain a precious valuable set their sights on the Mercer family’s home. It is up to Max to guard it against the invaders… and he will do whatever it takes to keep them out.” Epic mischiefs ensue, but despite the confusion, Max understands that “there truly is no place like home sweet home.”
I don’t want to smear the good people at Disney, but how did this project make it all the way through development and production without anyone tapping anyone else on the shoulder and whispering, “Hey, I don’t mean to worry you, but I think this film might just be Home Alone.” I mean, it’s exactly the same. We’ll be a laughingstock if this is released into the world and people see it.”
Verdict
And it’s not like the Home Alone format is overly restrictive. Consider Home Alone 2, which is similar to Home Alone but features an entire city instead of a house. Or Home Alone 3, a sequel to Home Alone that featured North Korean terrorists. Instead of the Wet Bandits. Or there was Home Alone 4, which was Home Alone with an odd divorce subplot. Or even 2012’s Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, which was Home Alone but with ghosts instead of people. See? It’s a straightforward procedure. At their core, all of these films are Home Alone. But with one element changed just enough to make it look new.
But not Home Sweet Home Alone. Unless the trailer reveals a huge secret plot point. Such as the boy having a cartoon dog best friend or the film ending with his murder. Home Sweet Home Alone is just Home Alone. It’s just Home Alone, albeit a version of Home Alone. In which the abandoned child knows enough about the film. Scarface to put together a parody sequence. The creepy old man is statistically quite likely to be played by Dr Spaceman from 30 Rock. And Buzz McCallister is now apparently a cop. And, yes, that last one does make some sense, but not enough to save the entire film.
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