Home Alone 3 (PG)

Yes, you read it right: Home Alone 3. If Bruce Willis thought he was unlucky with the Die Hard trilogy - - "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice/three times" etc - - then McCauley Culkin should seek legal help if he's abandoned and attacked by inept house-breakers yet again. Except that Culkin, the blond brat who found international fame and fortune by tackling Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci with household appliances and crudely-fashioned traps, doesn't actually appear in the third outing. Instead, Culkin - (now a blond, troublesome adolescent, who's old enough to stay home alone if he damn well feels like it) - has been replaced by the equally brattish (yet, dark-haired) Alex D Linz who, you guessed it, gets left on his own and outsmarts another couple of bumbling criminals.

Despite the clichéd plot, it's fairly funny: - witness the Tom&Jerry violence, some clever traps involving a toy car and the new kid who is both cheeky yet cute. But once you've stopped laughing at the slapstick, and at the tired attempts of the bad guys to get the better of this year's kid-with-the-A-Team-imagination, you'll realise you've been duped by a shameless rehash of the two previous films. As a result, Home Alone 3 quickly runs out of steam. We'll shiver with horror if this worn-out kiddie franchise makes it to Home Alone 4.

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