Home Sweet Home Alone: Film Review 

Cast: Archie Yates, Aisling Bea, Ellie Kemper, Rob Delaney
Director: Dan Mazer

Launched as part of Disney+Day and giving credence to the existence of a Home Alone cinematic universe, Home Sweet Home Alone sees Jojo Rabbit's Archie Yates take the role made iconic by Macaulay Culkin.

Yates is Max Mercer, a kid among a clutch of other siblings who feels overlooked - much like the 1990 original - and who gets left at home at Christmas when his family take off to Tokyo. This time though, instead of a couple of burglars looking to break in, the 2021 updating of the Home Alone film sees Kimmy Schmidt's Ellie Kemper and Catastrophe's Rob Delaney wanting to get inside Max's home after they believed he stole a doll from their house worth $200,000.

But Max is not unprepared....

It takes about one hour for the unveiling of the pranks and while they are essentially updatings of the original 1990s brutality, there are moments of originality that prove to be laugh out loud.

It's a long time to the payoff though - and Dan Mazer's direction doesn't really do much to build much sense of tension or anticipation in what it is a very formulaic family film. It's a shame because the film starts off strongly with some tightly scripted banter between Bea and Yates fizzing and popping, showing both the comic potential of the film and the actors.

But as events shift, the relocation of the focus onto Delaney and Kemper's characters means the film loses some of the sight of its central protagonist, and squanders the brilliant Archie Yates' comic timing and demeanor.

As one character observes at one point why you'd bother remaking a classic as it never holds up to the original. It's a feeling that older fans of Macaulay Culkin's original may find themselves asking repeatedly throughout - but the freshening of some of the ideas and the brutality of some of the traps Max sets may just be enough to keep the younger ones entertained during a family film night.

Home Sweet Home Alone is streaming now on Disney+