小鬼当家英文观后感

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John Hughes has a knack for writing about what teenagers get up to when left to their own devices. In ‘The Breakfast Club’, there’s shenanigans afoot when a gaggle of students get together for detention time. In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the slacker king turns into man about town behind his parents’ – and teachers’ – backs. Then there’s ‘Weird Science’, where two High School geeks even go as far as to bio-engineer their very own woman. ‘Home Alone’ could be said to run along the same vein, only with the crucial difference of the star of the show being an eight-year-old.

So, how do you orchestrate a scenario where an ankle-biter’s left on his own? You have his entire family accidentally head for a Christmas vacation in Paris without him, that’s how. And that’s how fresh-faced young ‘un Kevin McCallister comes to be left in his parents’ ridiculously-large house, completely on his lonesome. The only problem is, keeping things that way becomes increasingly problematic when bungling burglars Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) take a shine to the place and fancy making off with the widescreen TV. Of course, you might think that a call to the local police station, or even asking for a bit of help from the neighbours, might be the best way to nip this thing in the bud. But no, our Kev has a much better idea – and it involves booby traps. Lots of them.

Even if you haven’t seen this flick, chances are you’ll have guessed plausibility isn’t one of its strong points. It also suffers from a plot arc which goes distinctly saggy in the middle, dragged down by the fact that, in-between the setting-up of the overall premise and the hilarious final half-hour, very little actually happens.

But, despite all of that, most of us have a bit of affection for ‘Home Alone’. It features Culkin before he became all grown-up and funny-looking and, no matter how many times I see it, the frantic climax where the crims get their comeuppance never loses its humour. In fact, there are great performances all round, and it’s worth noting that Pesci delivered this fine tongue-in-cheek comic display in the same year that he gave us his terrifying Oscar-winning portrayal of Tommy DeVito in ‘Goodfellas’. The guy hasn’t made a movie since 1998, and Hollywood’s the weaker for it.

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Kevin and his family are all set to go to Paris to spend Christmas vacation with various relatives, a trip that has no appeal for Kevin at all. He in fact wishes that all of his family would simply disappear, a wish which comes true in a manner of speaking when they leave for France without him. Initially delighted by the prospect of spending the festive period doing as he wishes Kevin soon runs into problems when two burglars decide to set their sights on his home.

Hughes' most successful screenplay to date and the film, which made Macaulay Culkin a household name (on this basis alone, some would argue it should never be viewed) is a festive tale from a disgruntled child's perspective. Hughes manages to capture Kevin's (Macaulay Culkin) feelings of precociousness and childish dreaming with a deft ability. We follow Kevin as he goes from delight at having the house to himself (and believing that his dreams really have come true) to defending his territory against the burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern). The majority of comedy comes from the booby traps the inventive Kevin creates which ruin each burglary attempt with fine slapstick humour.

Culkin walks a fine line between annoyance and endearment throughout the film. While never 'cute' you cannot help but side with him, although you also pity Pesci and Stern who never stand a chance. This is a film which manages to capture some of the best qualities of Christmas in a surprisingly enjoyable format and will provide the whole family with large quantities of festive spirit.

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What’s the Story?Reviewed by Marjorie Kase
HOME ALONE is the story of 8-year-old Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), a mischievous middle child who feels largely ignored by his large extended family. While preparing for a Christmas vacation in Paris, Kevin gets in trouble, is banished to the attic overnight, and wishes his family would just disappear. Kevin gets his wish the next morning when his family mistakenly leaves him behind. At first, Kevin is elated, celebrating by pigging out, watching gangster flicks, and rifling through his parents' stuff (including, in the film's most memorable scene, his dad's aftershave). But pretty soon he realizes that being home alone isn't all it's cracked up to be. He misses his mom (who employs any and every means of getting home to her son) and even his bully brother. With all the block's families on vacation, Kevin has no one to turn to, including the cops, who assume he's up to his usual tricks. Meanwhile, a pair of bumbling burglars played by Joe Pesci (Goodfellas, Lethal Weapon 2-4) and Daniel Stern take advantage of the situation by pillaging the neighborhood. It's up to Kevin to defend his home, using every prank in his well-stocked arsenal. A bevy of violent, slapstick, wince-inducing episodes ensue, resulting in Kevin (with a little help from a creepy neighbor) successfully foiling the bad guys' plans -- just in time for the clueless cops, as well as his worried yet relieved family.

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Eight-year-old Kevin McCallister (Culkin) feels slighted by his large, obnoxious family and throws a temper tantrum on the eve of a vacation trip to Europe. Exiled to his room by his mother (Catherine O'Hara), Kevin fatefully wishes that his family would disappear. The next morning, he awakens to find himself all alone in the house. Scared at first, he soon proves adept at fending for himself. As his guilt-stricken mom begins an arduous journey back from Europe to rescue her son, Kevin elaborately defends the house against a pair of menacing but comically inept burglars (Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci).

The first half of HOME ALONE features the sugar-coated sentimentality that can usually be found in a Hughes film, while the second half is full of unanticipated sadism (a close-up of Stern's bare foot slipping slowly down a six-inch nail is the film's most ghastly image). As directed by Chris Columbus (HEARTBREAK HOTEL), the film's slapstick falls flat and only the pain remains. Yet the film's message seems even more disturbing than its violence. This could be the first comedy--it's certainly the first holiday film--which focuses on child abuse. As Kevin shoots pellets into the intruders and takes a blowtorch to their heads, he's directing the hostility he feels toward his neglectful parents at these two guys. The only really likable thing about this film is Culkin (UNCLE BUCK, JACOB'S LADDER). He's an uncommonly natural child actor, but even he doesn't always survive the tiresome gags

`Home Alone" is a splendid movie title because it evokes all sorts of scary nostalgia. Being left home alone, when you were a kid, meant hearing strange noises and being afraid to look in the basement - but it also meant doing all the things that grownups would tell you to stop doing, if they were there. Things like staying up to watch Johnny Carson, eating all the ice cream, and sleeping in your parents' bed.

"Home Alone" is about an 8-year-old hero who does all of those things, but unfortunately he also single-handedly stymies two house burglars by booby-trapping the house. And they're the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people.

The movie's screenplay is by John Hughes, who sometimes shows a genius for remembering what it was like to be young. His best movies, such as "Sixteen Candles," "Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," find a way to be funny while still staying somewhere within the boundaries of remote plausibility. This time, he strays so far from his premise that the movie suffers.

If "Home Alone" had limited itself to the things that might possibly happen to a forgotten 8-year-old, I think I would have liked it more. What I didn't enjoy was the subplot involving the burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), who are immediately spotted by little Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), and made the targets of his cleverness.

The movie opens in the Chicago suburbs with a houseful of people on the eve of a big family Christmas vacation in Paris. There are relatives and kids everywhere, and when the family oversleeps and has to race to the airport, Kevin is somehow overlooked in the shuffle. When he wakes up later that morning, the house is empty. So he makes the best of it.

A real kid would probably be more frightened than this movie character, and would probably cry. He might also try calling someone, or asking a neighbor for help. But in the contrived world of this movie, the only neighbor is an old coot who is rumored to be the Snow Shovel Murderer, and the phone doesn't work. When Kevin's parents discover they've forgotten him, they find it impossible to get anyone to follow through on their panicked calls - if anyone did so, the movie would be over.

The plot is so implausible that it makes it hard for us to really care about the plight of the kid. What works in the other direction, however, and almost carries the day, is the gifted performance by young Macaulay Culkin, as Kevin. Culkin is the little boy who co-starred with John Candy in "Uncle Buck," and here he has to carry almost the whole movie. He has lots of challenging acting scenes, and he's up to them. I'm sure he got lots of help from director Chris Columbus, but he's got the stuff to begin with. He's such a confident and gifted little actor that I'd like to see him in a story I could care more about.

"Home Alone" isn't that story. When the burglars invade Kevin's home, they find themselves running a gamut of booby traps so elaborate they could have been concocted by Rube Goldberg - or by the berserk father in "Last House on the Left." Because all plausibility is gone, we sit back, detached, to watch stunt men and special effects guys take over a movie that promised to be the kind of story audiences could identify with.