Movie Review – Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)

“He’s up past his bedtime in the city that never sleeps.”

Back in 1990, Home Alone was a smash hit.  It seemed like there was a national obsession for the film.  Naturally, it was just a matter of time before Hollywood brought back the cast for a sequel.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York brings back the McCallister family for another crazy Christmas adventure.  Even though it was released two years later in 1992, the film itself takes place the following year.  An airport mix up sends Kevin McCallister to New York City while the rest of his extended family goes to Miami, Florida.  It’s a perfect solo vacation for Kevin until he encounters the Wet Bandits again.  It’s up to Kevin to stop the bandits from robbing a toy store’s money that’s destined for sick children in a hospital.

Like the first film, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was directed by Chris Columbus and written & produced by John Hughes.  Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O’Hara and John Heard all reprise their roles.  This sequel also includes Tim Curry, Rob Schneider, Brenda Fricker and Eddie Bracken.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York begins a couple of days before Christmas in Chicago, Illinois.  The extended McCallister family is packing for another Christmas trip.  Instead of going to Europe, this time around the family is heading south to Miami, Florida.

Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is in his parents’ room playing with a cassette recorder while his parents are packing for the trip.  He’s upset that they’re heading to Miami as it’ll be too hot for Christmas trees.  His mother, Kate McCallister (Catherine O’Hara), tells him to just decorate a palm tree instead.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

In addition to preparing for their trip, the family is also dressing for the Christmas pageant.  Part of Kevin’s outfit is in the bathroom, but his obnoxious Uncle Frank (Gerry Bamman) is in there and taking a shower.  Kevin uses his cassette recorder to record his uncle singing in the shower.  Frank finally notices him and yells at Kevin to leave the bathroom.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Kevin and his brothers and sisters are all singing in the pageant.  When it’s time for Kevin’s solo, his older brother, Buzz (Devin Ratray), uses artificial candles to humiliate Kevin.  When he finally notices what Buzz is doing, Kevin hits Buzz and knocks him off the platform.  This inadvertently causes a chain reaction that knocks down all the other students except for Kevin.  He’s standing alone on stage when the curtains quickly close.

Both Buzz and Kevin are in trouble back at home.  While everybody thought that Buzz was hilarious, he still apologizes in a dramatic fashion.  He doesn’t mean his apology to Kevin and insults his little brother out of their parents’ hearing distance.  This angers Kevin and he refuses to apologize.  His mother punishes him by making him sleep by himself on the third floor, just as he did in the first film.

As they were packing, Kevin’s father, Peter McCallister (John Heard), unplugged and accidentally reset their alarm clock.  Just like last year, the family oversleeps and has to rush to get ready to head for the airport.  The families climb into the shuttle vans and Kate distributes the airline tickets.  Just as she thinks that Kevin is missing, he pops up in the front seat.  Everybody is there and they rush to the airport.

The shuttle vans drop off the family at the curb.  For some reason Kevin is obsessed with putting new batteries into his cassette recorder, something that can easily be done once they’re on the airplane.  The batteries are in his father’s carry-on bag, and Kevin carries it and fumbles with the batteries.  He falls behind and loses sight of his parents as they keep rushing to the gate.  Kevin finally gets the batteries into the recorder and runs forward.  He follows somebody who looks and dresses like his father.  While Kevin’s family boards a flight to Miami, Kevin follows the other man to a flight for New York City.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Both flights are moments away from departure.  The gate agents rush the McCallisters onto the aircraft, assuring Kate and Peter that they’ll get everybody on board.  At the other gate, Kevin bumps into the ticket agent and loses his boarding pass.  She takes Kevin onto the plane and he thinks that he spots his father.  None of his family members have tickets together as the flight was full, so he’s not expecting to sit by anybody he knows.  The ticket agent has Kevin take an open seat, and the flight is ready to go.  Nobody suspects anything is wrong as the two airliners depart from Chicago, heading for different destinations.

When Kevin arrives at his destination, he’s puzzled that he cannot find anybody that he knows.  When he looks out a window he realizes it’s the wrong city.  An airliner worker informs him that it’s New York City.  Kevin has noticed that he has his father’s credit card along with a bunch of cash in his father’s bag, so he decides to make the best of it.  He takes a taxi cab into the heart of the city.

In Miami, nobody notices that Kevin is missing until the family is collecting their luggage.  Kate and Peter talk to the airport police and report that their son is missing.  Again.  They think that he’s still at the Chicago airport.  It’s unlikely that he would be anywhere else.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Meanwhile, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), the Wet Bandits, have escaped from jail during a prison riot.  They’ve also made their way to New York City, and they blend into the heavy crowds.  Marv has covered one of his hands with sticky tape and renames their group to the Sticky Bandits.  He does quick little robberies by stealing whatever is stuck to his hand.

Harry’s plan is that they’ll rob a place, get some fake passports, and then leave the U.S. for another country.  They don’t have their supplies so they cannot pull off a big robbery like a bank heist.  Nor do they have time to rob homes.  His plan is to rob a toy store on Christmas Eve night.  The store is guaranteed to be busy on Christmas Eve, and the owners aren’t going to be able to make a bank deposit that night.

Their target is Duncan’s Toy Chest, the largest toy store in New York City.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Kevin is still exploring the city after arriving there from the airport.  He sees the Statue of Liberty, he visits Chinatown, and he even checks out the views from the top of the World Trade Center’s twin towers.  When Kevin is going through Central Park he’s spooked by a homeless lady (Brenda Fricker) and her collection of pigeons.

Kevin decides to stay at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.  He saw an advertisement for the hotel while watching a game show the previous night.  Kevin records himself pretending to be his father and then plays it back slowly while making a call to the reservation desk.  This works and the worker makes the reservation, thinking that she’s speaking with Peter McCallister.  Kevin then goes to the front desk and checks into the hotel.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Mrs. Stone (Dana Ivey), the front desk clerk, is skeptical of the young boy trying to check into the top hotel in New York City, but he tells a convincing story.  Mr. Hector (Tim Curry), the concierge, is also suspicious of the boy, so he assigns a bellhop named Cedric (Rob Schneider) to spy and learn more about him.  Cedric carries Kevin’s backpack and shows him his room, but he doesn’t learn anything about him.

While searching for a photograph of Kevin at the Miami airport, Peter realizes that he doesn’t have his wallet.  His wallet was in his carry-on bag, which Kevin has.  The police officer offers to call and put an alert on his credit cards.  If Kevin uses them, they’ll know where he’s located.

That afternoon, Kevin spends time in the hotel’s swimming pool.  He later orders some rather extravagant room service and watches classic gangster films.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Later that night, Mr. Hector slips into Kevin’s room to spy on him.  Kevin hears him approaching and figures out a quick plan.  He uses a life-sized blow up clown doll (something that was to be used in a pool in Miami) and puts it in the shower.  He then plays back the audio recording of his uncle frank singing in the shower.  When Mr. Hector peeks into the bathroom, it’s timed so that the “man” in the shower notices him and yells for him to get out of the bathroom.  This spooks Mr. Hector and sends him running out of the room.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

The next morning is Christmas Eve.  Mr. Hector tries to make up for his error from last night.  He has arranged for a limousine to take Kevin on a tour through town.  Included with the limo is a cheese pizza, just for Kevin.  While riding through the city Kevin asks to go to a toy store.  The driver takes him to Duncan’s Toy Chest.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

After exploring the massive toy store, Kevin decides to purchase a few items.  At the checkout counter is E.F. Duncan (Eddie Bracken), but Kevin isn’t aware that the worker is actually the owner of the store.  Duncan explains that the money from sales that day is going to be donated to the children in a local hospital on Christmas day.  Kevin is impressed and makes a donation.  Duncan is equally impressed and allows for Kevin to take home an ornament from a small Christmas tree on the counter.  He selects the two turtle doves.  Duncan explains that he needs to keep one of the doves for himself and to give the other dove to a good friend.

Outside the toy store, Kevin is standing on the curb when he approached from behind by Harry and Marv.  The burglars recognize the boy and try to grab him.  Kevin screams in their face, causing a scene, and then he runs away.  Kevin is able to run back to the Plaza Hotel, but he’s confronted by Mr. Hector.  While he was out, Mr. Hector discovered that Kevin’s credit card was reported as stolen.  Kevin slips past the workers and makes it to an elevator.  He then runs to his room and quickly packs his stuff so that he can return to the airport and head home.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

When the hotel workers enter Kevin’s room, the boy plays the gangster film like he did in the first Home Alone movie.  The people think that they’re talking to Kevin’s father, but it just a character from the movie.  During the gunfire scene the workers panic and Kevin slips out the door.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

As Kevin is running out the back of the hotel he runs straight into Harry and Marv.  They grab him and hold him at gunpoint.  While walking Kevin to a quiet place to kill him, Marv blabs about their plans to rob Duncan’s Toy Store that night.  They don’t know that Kevin records all of their talk with his cassette recorder.  When they come to a crosswalk, Kevin causes another scene and slips away from Harry and Marv.  He runs into Central Park and loses the two burglars.

Back in Miami, Kate receives a phone call at their hotel.  She learns that Peter’s credit card was used in New York City, but Kevin left the Plaza Hotel.  She has everybody head to the airport so that they can all fly to New York to find Kevin.

Now Kevin needs a place to spend the night.  He doesn’t have a credit card, doesn’t want to go to a police station, and Marv destroyed his plane ticket.  He’s down to whatever cash is left in his pocket.

Kevin goes through his father’s directory and learns the address of Peter’s brother, Kevin’s uncle Rob.  He makes his way to Rob’s townhouse but his uncle isn’t home.  His uncle is actually in Paris and his home in New York City is being renovated.  Kevin then returns to walking the streets but he becomes frightened when seeing the people who wander out there at night.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

When he’s in Central Park, Kevin feeds a few pigeons and then sees the homeless lady again.  He panics and tries to flee, but his foot is caught in some rocks.  Instead of attacking him the homeless lady frees his foot.  Kevin then realizes that he wasn’t in danger, so he goes back to apologize to her.  He then treats her to some hot chocolate and gets to know the woman.  It turns out that she was married and had a job, but her attitude changed when her husband left her.  The woman became depressed and untrustworthy of others, so she began walking the streets.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

After spending time with the homeless lady, Kevin walks past a hospital and sees a young boy in a window.  He then thinks about what Mr. Duncan said along with Harry and Marv’s plans of robbing the toy store.  The fact that the money is going to be donated to sick children just makes their crime that much worse.  Kevin decides to stop the robbers.  Instead of simply calling the police and alerting them to the robbery, Kevin returns to his uncle’s house and begins setting a series of deadly traps.  He wants to punish Harry and Marv.

Midnight rolls around and Duncan’s Toy Chest is closed and locked tight.  Harry and Marv emerge from their hiding places and discover that they have the store to themselves.  They use crowbars and easily break into the chests of money.  It’s an easy crime until Kevin knocks on the window to get their attention.  He then takes their picture and uses a brick to smash the store’s window.  The window breaks and a loud alarm sounds.  Harry and Marv grab a bunch of cash and then chase after Kevin as he has evidence of them committing the burglary.

Kevin stays ahead of Harry and Marv and leads them to uncle Rob’s house.  He quickly makes his way to the roof and offers to toss the camera down to the burglars.  Instead, Kevin throws bricks and hits Marv on the head several times.  The burglars split up and try to break into the house to catch Kevin.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

Just like in Home Alone, both Harry and Marv endure a series of painful booby traps as they break into the house.  Unlike the previous time, this time the traps are much more lethal.  In reality, both Harry and Marv would have been killed by several of the traps.  They finally get into the house and chase Kevin to the roof, but he escapes and uses a rope to climb down the side of the building.  When Harry and Marv follow, they discover that the rope had been soaked in kerosene.  Kevin lights a match while safely on the ground and burns the rope.  The two burglars climb but are unable to reach the top of the building.  Just as they’re about to be burned, they both fall a long distance and make a crash landing.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

It looks like Kevin is in the clear until he slips on a patch of ice and hits his head.  When he regains consciousness Harry and Marv are waiting for him.  They grab him and take him into the seclusion of Central Park.  Just as Harry is about to shoot Kevin, suddenly a bunch of pigeons appear.  It’s the homeless lady!  She has Kevin run before throwing a bucket of bird seed onto Harry and Marv.  The burglars are quickly swarmed by pigeons.  Kevin lights some fireworks to alert the police, and he watches from a distance as Harry and Marv are arrested and taken back to jail.

Meanwhile, the rest of the McCallister family has arrived in New York City and the Plaza Hotel.  To help make up for the problems, the Plaza Hotel has upgraded the McCallisters to the hotel’s multi-level presidential suite.  After talking to the hotel’s workers, Kate heads into the city to try to find her son.  He’s not at Rob’s house.  After talking to a police officer, Kate suddenly knows where to find Kevin.  She finds him looking at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, the biggest Christmas tree in the city.  The two of them make up their differences and then head back to the hotel.

Back at Duncan’s Toy Chest, the police officers find the brick that smashed the window.  Attached to the brick is a letter addressed to Mr. Duncan.  When Mr. Duncan reads the letter he realizes that Kevin McCallister was the boy who received the two turtle doves earlier that day.  To thank Kevin for his actions in catching the burglars, Mr. Duncan sends a truckload of Christmas presents to the McCallister’s room at the Plaza Hotel.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – (c) 20th Century Fox

When the family wakes on Christmas Day, everybody is shocked at the display of presents.  Buzz acknowledges that it was his brother’s actions that brought them to the best hotel in the country’s biggest city, and he sincerely thanks him.  Kevin accepts Buzz’s olive branch and the family begins opening their presents.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York ends as Kevin goes outside on Christmas morning and finds the homeless lady in the park.  He gives her one of the two turtle doves and promises to never forget her.  Kevin then gets into trouble when his father discovers that he spent over $950 in room service.

So is Home Alone 2: Lost in New York any good?

Yes and no.

There’s little new material in this sequel.  The main plot of the film and Kevin’s ordeal with the burglars is mainly a repeat of the events in the first Home Alone film.  Substitute the old neighbor for the homeless bird lady, place the action in New York City, and there you go.  Been there.  Done that.

Like before, Kevin’s family is full of irresponsible jerks.  None of them have changed their attitude or personality since the first film.  Apparently they have forgotten the events from the first film as Kevin is still picked on by everybody.

This time around Kevin makes it to the airport but he still gets separated from his family.  Why he insists on putting batteries into his recorder at that most critical of times is beyond me.  When you’re running late for a flight, meaningless tasks like that could have waited until later.  Kevin’s parents never keep track of him, and the boy is fooled when he chases somebody who looks like his father.  The ticket agent is rushed to board Kevin so the flight can depart, and she never confirms that Kevin’s father is really his father.  It’s a huge mistake on her part, something that can easily cost her her job.

The film tries to make Kevin’s separation at the airport seem plausible, but it’s pretty stupid in the end.  Nobody learns their lesson and the family keeps making stupid mistakes.  It’s pretty insulting on the viewer to see the parents making the same errors twice in a row.  And we’re supposed to believe that Peter McCallister is successful enough at his job to earn a large enough paycheck to afford the family’s lavish lifestyle?  Yeah, right.

It also would have been nice if we knew a little bit more about the Wet Bandits and their escape from prison.  Those two characters stole the show in the first film.  They deserved more screen time in the second one.  Simply having them pop up in New York City (after escaping from prison during a riot) was just too convenient.

Speaking of more events repeating from the first film, how about Kevin fooling the workers in the Plaza Hotel.  From the inflatable clown fooling Mr. Hector to the gangster film fooling the rest of the workers, we’ve already seen those tricks.  Didn’t Kevin have anything else up his sleeve?

Was it just me, or was it a bit far-fetched for Kevin to not only plan his bobby traps but to also set them in less than three hours?  Keep in mind that this was his uncle Rob’s house, a place that he had never visited until that day.

And yes, most of those booby traps would have killed both Harry and Marv.  From the electrocution to Harry’s flaming head going into a toilet bowl full of gasoline to a 100-pound bag of cement falling several stories and landing on Marv’s head to the whole sequence with the burning rope and long fall to the ground, those two burglars would have both been killed.

It’s takes away the fun and humor when people keep surviving impossible scenarios.  Such an effect just dumbs down the movie and insults the viewers.  Those two burglars seemed to be much smarter in the first film.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – movie trailer

It’s easy to keep talking about the faults in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York because they are so numerous.  Instead of being a fun movie with a bunch of new content, instead we have a film that’s mediocre at best and it shows us the same jokes and gags from the first film.  You have to really shut off your brain to enjoy this Christmas-themed movie.

And the family is still full of irresponsible jerks.

Cedrick the Bellman-  “Do you know how the TV works?”
Kevin McCallister – “I’m 10 years old. TV is my life.”

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Kevin McCallister – “You can mess with a lot of things, but you can’t mess with kids on Christmas.”

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Kate McCallister – “What kind of idiots do you have working here?”
Mrs. Stone, Desk Clerk – “The finest in New York.”

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Marv – “SUCK BRICK, KID!”

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Kevin McCallister – “It’s a nice night for a neck injury.”