Blu-ray Review

Home Alone 2: Lost In New York

Official Synopsis:

Great news - Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is spending the holidays in New York City! Bad news - his parents are spending them in Florida! Separated once again from his family, Kevin manages to find food, lodging and fun using his dad's credit card. But his big-spending solo act takes a dangerous turn when the Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), escape prison and also land in the Big Apple. Now, Kevin must outrun and outprank them again in this high-flying adventure with twice the ingenuity, twice the kid power and twice the laughs as the original!

Our Take:

I like Home Alone 2: Lost in New York better than the first Home Alone. There, I said it. I am wholly aware of the fact that they are essentially the same exact movie. I get that Home Alone 2 is about as original as a Rambo sequel, but I have my reasons.

For starters, I have never been a big John Hughes fan. In fact, I downright do not like the majority of his work. Having penned the Home Alone films, he essentially re-made different aspects of my favorite of his films, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, only if Ferris never left his house. The homemade contraptions are there, the Chicago suburbs are naturally the setting, and we have a whip smart, precocious kid, that is the Ferris Bueller of 10 year-olds.

The first Home Alone was just more Hughes saccharine-loaded suburban nostalgia mixed with slapstick comedy. Home Alone 2 is the same, but Hughes finally moves out of the suburbs, into the suburban tourist’s world of the Plaza Hotel, Central Park, and FAO Shwartz (renamed here Duncan’s Toy Chest). This move allowed Hughes to indulge in what made Ferris Bueller’s Day Off so excellent, youthful freedom. Like in Ferris, young Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) runs wild, ordering room service and seeing the sights. He gets to live a fairy tale ideal existence free from responsibility and repercussions, even if it is just for a day.

Once the freedom-filled first act concludes and Kevin is evicted from the Plaza, the film kicks into full Home Alone rehash mode. It is also at this point we leave the best villain in the film, the wonderful Tim Curry, proving that if anyone should have been cast as a live action Grinch, it should have been he. The slapstick gags are a lot more sadistic this time around, as toy cars and thumbtacks have been traded in for bricks and gasoline. This will be sure to test the limits of anyone’s suspension of disbelief, but just think of it as a Looney Tunes cartoon when you start to wonder how all those explosions can occur in Manhattan without anyone noticing.

I have spoken a lot about John Hughes since he wrote the movie, but in case you are wondering, the wonderful hack director Chris Columbus is at the helm again as he was in the first movie and as he tends to do, he fills the film with romanticized hokum and quick and easy shots. In fact, Columbus is probably the best director other than Hughes himself for this material since they seem to share suburban sensibilities.

Audio & Video:

20th Century Fox has released Home Alone 2: Lost in New York well in time for the holidays on a single-layer 25GB Blu-ray disc. The film has been given a MPEG-4 AVC encode and a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio surround track.

The video is not up to par on this release. While it may be due to the source, the film looks noticeably flat during the majority of its running time with a lot of grain and noise invading the picture. Object detail as well as facial color tones are an improvement over previous standard definition incarnations of the film, but ultimately this is an underwhelming video presentation.

Audio is a more marked improvement as the booming Christmas soundtrack is distributed well among all speakers, as are the ambient sounds of New York City. The final act explosions and hijinks will workout your bass and make the audio side of things far better than the video.

Special Features (Blu-ray Exclusive):

It is surprising that 20th Century Fox would not package Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, a Christmas staple, with even a single extra feature. Considering this is only a single-layer disc, it is probably a good thing as having features take up space on the disc would hinder an already below par video transfer. Nevertheless, it is disappointing that second disc of extras or even a dual-layer Blu-ray disc was not utilized.

Special Features (Standard):

None.

Conclusion:

Home Alone 2 gets me in the Christmas spirit regardless of when in the year I watch it. It may not even be Halloween yet as I’m writing this, but after watching Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, I was ready to deck the halls with boughs of holly. It may be a flawed film, but it remains one of the few John Hughes works (written or directed) that I find enjoyable. The lack of extras may annoy some, but the film is still the same and while it appears ripe for a double-dip down the line, this currently stands as the best available version of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

RECOMMENDED!

Overall Picture:

Movie: B+
Video: C+
Audio: B
Extra Features: F

- Matthew Orlando
Staff Writer