Good Things About Home Alone 2

Home Alone 2, although inferior to the original, is still a solid Christmas film and has held a special place in my heart ever since I saw it on my birthday in 1993. Even though Culkin is older, and thus less cute, the more ridiculous stunts and much crazier crazy person stretch plausibility, and the plot parallels to the original are egregiously lazy, there are a few moments which make Home Alone 2 goofy and goodhearted enough to be worthwhile.

The Talkboy

When Home Alone 2 came out, suddenly every annoyingly precocious pre-teen boy on the block wanted this incredible invention, including me. Just imagine the possiblities!! You could use this convenient handheld device to easily deceive, humiliate, or otherwise confuse adults into submission with the touch of a button. Kevin operated this baby like a genius and made every nine year old kid feel like he could be James Bond or something. Except for one problem: it isn't really that different from an ordinary tape recorder. Most people aren't stupid enough to confuse a voice coming out of a tape recorder with a real voice and are probably going to be pretty judicious about what they say when they know the little prick with the tape recorder is probably going to play back your voice at Chipmunk-pitch. Not to mention the fact that magnetic tapes are absolutely worthless. It's impossible to start and stop the thing exactly where you want it and if Home Alone 2 took place in reality, it's pretty likely he'd tape over anything useful with another totally random recording of game show commercials.

Catherine O'Hara

I couldn't find a picture of Catherine O'Hara from Home Alone 2. But she's great. I know that in this post-American Pie era, the term milf is used for people like Pamela Anderson, I guess. And while I think it's a pretty stupid term myself, I'm not going to deny that I have a thing for Catherine O'Hara in the Home Alone movies. Is this tendency hopelessly weird? Probably, yes. But she still looks good in the movies, is still hysterical in comedic roles, and I'm not going to try to justify myself any further. Also note that the top hit for Google search string "milf wiki" is the wiki page for "Milf Hunter." Presented without comment.

Joe Pesci

I spent most of my young life knowing Joe Pesci as the tough burglar from Home Alone. What I didn't realize at the time was that Pesci was basically typecast as a badass fucking mobster. The same dude from Goodfellas and who was even a villain in Moonwalker, yes, that Moonwalker, was suddenly laying down for a kindergartener. It's basically taken the entire rest of my life for me to rehabilitate my personal image of Joe Pesci to the point where I can watch a movie with him in it without automatically thinking of Home Alone. After long hours of Joe Pesci-related therapy, however, I believe I am cured. Finally, I can watch Lethal Weapon in peace... or I might not.

Ok, so looking back it seems that other than the Talkboy, maybe there isn't that much to distinguish the two movies. The second one is also good for the ass grab scene [comedic gold], the pretty absurd fact that almost every major character except the cop that helps Catherine O'Hara at the end is white [in fucking New York, no less], and just the general insanity of Kevin finding shelter with a crazy homeless woman who hasn't spoken to anyone in years. Yeah, come to think of it, the original is way better than this one. Never mind.