Home Alone 3

Home Alone 3

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Raja Gosnell
Produced by John Hughes
Hilton Green
Written by John Hughes
Starring Alex D. Linz
Haviland Morris
Music by Nick Glennie-Smith
Cinematography Julio Macat
Edited by Bruce Green
Malcolm Campbell
Production
company
Hughes Entertainment
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • December 12, 1997 (1997-12-12)
Running time
 101 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $32 million
Box office $79 million

Home Alone 3 is a 1997 American family comedy film written and produced by John Hughes. It is the third film in the Home Alone series and the first not to feature actor Macaulay Culkin and the cast from the previous sequels (1990, 1992), director Chris Columbus, and composer John Williams. The film is directed by Raja Gosnell (in his directorial debut), who served as the editor of both original films and stars Alex D. Linz as Alex Pruitt, a resourceful boy who is left home alone and has to defend his home from a band of criminals. The film was followed by a made-for-television sequel, Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House, in 2002.

Plot

Peter Beaupre, Alice Ribbons, Burton Jernigan, and Earl Unger, four internationally wanted hitmen working for a North Korean terrorist group, have stolen a US$10 million missile cloaking computer chip. The thieves put it inside a remote control car to sneak it past security at San Francisco International Airport. However, a luggage mix-up occurs, causing a woman named Mrs. Hess to inadvertently take the thieves' bag containing the remote control car while returning home to Chicago. The four thieves arrive in Chicago and systematically search every house in Hess's suburban neighborhood to find the chip.

Meanwhile, Alex Pruitt is given the remote control car by Hess for shoveling snow, but she lectures him for scratching numerous itches. He returns home and removes his shirt to discover that he has chickenpox, and therefore must stay out of school. While recovering at home, Alex uses his telescope and discovers the thieves on look out for the chip. Wondering what the thieves want with a remote control car, Alex opens it and discovers the stolen chip. He informs the local Air Force Recruitment Center about the chip while asking if they can forward the information about the chip to someone.

The thieves conclude that Alex has been watching them and decide to pursue him. As a snowstorm hits Chicago, the thieves block off the road to the house, and Alice duct tapes Hess to a chair in her garage and leaves the door open. By this point, Alex has armed his house with booby traps and prepares to set them off with his pet rat, Doris, and the loud-mouthed pet parrot of his brother, Stan. After several break-in attempts, the thieves manage to make it into the house, despite falling into Alex's traps. They begin to search the house to find Alex. Alex runs to the attic and goes into the dumbwaiter down to the basement, and runs outside and calls to Alice, Jernigan and Unger. The thieves see Alex and notice a trampoline below them. Jernigan and Unger jump to pursue Alex, but the trampoline gives way and they fall into a frozen pool. Alice wriggles her way into the dumbwaiter chute, but falls down to the basement because Alex removed the bottom.

Alex rescues Hess and is cornered by Beaupre, but manages to scare him off with a fake gun. Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation goes to Alex's siblings' school after being tipped off by the recruitment center. Alex's family brings the agents to their house, where the police arrive and arrest Alice, Jernigan, and Unger. However, Beaupre flees to the snow fort in the backyard. The parrot drives the remote control car into the snow fort and threatens to light fireworks, which are lined around the inside. Beaupre offers a cracker, but the parrot demands two. Since he only has one, the parrot then lights the fireworks, and flees. Beaupre is discovered and arrested.

In the epilogue, Alex and his family celebrate with his father returning home as it is being repaired. Hess, who befriends Alex after he successfully rescues her, is there along with the FBI and the police while Alex's house is being repaired. While the thieves are having their mugshot photos taken, they seem to have caught Alex's chickenpox.

Cast

Production

Home Alone 3 was pitched at the same time as Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and it was planned to produce both movies simultaneously; however, those plans fell through.

The idea for a third Home Alone movie was revived in the mid-1990s; early drafts called for Macaulay Culkin to return as a teenaged version of Kevin McCallister. By 1994, however, Culkin had dropped out of acting. As a result, the idea was reworked as an entirely new film centering on a new cast of characters. It was filmed in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois, with the airport scenes in the beginning of the film being shot in two different concourses at O'Hare International Airport.

Soundtrack

Home Alone 3: Music From The Motion Picture
Film score by Home Alone
Released December 12, 1997
Label Universal Music Int'l
Producer The Wee Sing Productions
Home Alone chronology
Home Alone 2
(1992)		 Home Alone 3
(1997)

Reception

The film grossed $79,082,515 worldwide.[1]

Critical reception for Home Alone 3 was generally negative upon release. It holds a 27% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 22 reviews and was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake or Sequel, where it lost to Speed 2: Cruise Control.[2] Both films were released by 20th Century Fox.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a positive review (3 out of 4 stars)[3] and says he found it to be "fresh, very funny, and better than the first two".[4]

Novelization

A novelization based on the screenplay was written by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1997 to coincide with the film. ISBN 0-590-95712-0

The novelization starts with the four crooks, Peter Beaupre, Earl Unger, Burton Jernigan and Alice Ribbons waiting outside the taxi depot.

Home media

Home Alone 3 was released on VHS and Laserdisc on June 2, 1998, and on DVD in 1999, with reissues of the same DVD occurring in December 2007. (2008 as part of Home Alone multi-packs). While the DVD presents the film in its original Widescreen format (1.85:1), it is presented in a non-anamorphic 4:3 matte.

References

  1. ↑ "Home Alone 3 (1997)". Box Office Mojo.
  2. ↑ "Home Alone 3 (1997)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster.
  3. ↑ Roger Ebert Review - Home Alone 3 Retrieved April 5, 2013
  4. ↑

External links

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