Home Alone 3 is a 1997 family film, the third in the Home Alone series. It was going to star the original cast, but 20th Century Fox did not allow Chris Columbus, director of the first two films, and producer John Hughes to film it back to back with Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Instead, the film was entirely re-cast with a new set of characters and actors who share no connection to the first two films. Alex D. Linz stars as Alex Pruitt, a resourceful boy who is left home alone, replacing Kevin McCallister, the lead character of the first two films who was portrayed by Macaulay Culkin.
Home Alone 3 was written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Raja Gosnell, who was the editor of both Home Alone and Home Alone 2. The film was followed by another sequel, a television movie titled Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House.
Plot
Petr Beaupre (Olek Krupa) is the leader of a quartet of thieves who has stolen a valuable missile cloaking computer chip for a North Korean terrorist group. They put it inside a toy remote control car to sneak it past security. At San Francisco International Airport, however, Mrs. Hess (Marian Seldes) accidentally takes the bag with the remote control car. The thieves then come to Chicago and systematically search every house in Mrs. Hess's suburb to find the chip.
8-year-old Alex Pruitt (Alex D. Linz) is then given the remote control car by Mrs. Hess as a reward for shoveling snow. He soon becomes ill with the chicken pox and must stay home. While he is at home, he sees the thieves through his telescope and calls the police. The thieves leave by the time the police come. After Alex reports the thieves again, they still manage to get away, and the police don't believe him. Alex then decides to take matters into his own hands: "If nobody's gonna do anything about this, I'll just have to do it myself." He mounts a camera on his remote controlled car and tries to film some footage of the thieves, who are now residing in a vacant house. He successfully films the thief, but the remote controlled car is discovered before it can get away and the thieves take the tape.
The thieves realize that Alex has the chip and go after him. They block off the road to the house, and Alice ties up Mrs. Hess in her garage and leaves the door open. By this point, Alex has armed the house with more booby traps. After several break-in attempts, they chase Alex. He runs to the attic and goes into the laundry elevator to the basement. He then runs outside and calls to the thieves. They see him and notice the trampoline below them. Two of them jump, but the trampoline gives way and they fall into the frozen pool. Alice wriggles her way into the laundry elevator chute but falls down to the basement. Alex rescues Mrs. Hess, but is cornered by Beaupre, but scares him off.
Meanwhile the FBI, which has also been tracking the chip, goes to Alex's school. Alex's family brings the agents to their house, where the police arrest three of the four thieves. Beaupre, however, managed to escape and hides in the igloo in the backyard. Stan's parrot drives the RC car into the igloo and threatens to light the fireworks which are lined around the inside. Beaupre offers a cracker, but the parrot demands two. Since he only has one cracker, the parrot then lights the fireworks, and escapes. The entire igloo erupts with fireworks with Beaupre in it, and the police arrest him. The FBI are happy to catch him as they've been after him for seven years but he always gets away.
Alex and his family celebrate with their dad returning. Mrs. Hess, who befriends Alex after he rescues her, is there along with the FBI and police while the house is repaired. Alex gets a surprise: another remote control car. In the final scene, where the four thieves are having their mugshot photos taken, they are shown to have Alex's chicken pox.
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.
The idea for a third Home Alone movie was revived in the mid-1990's; early drafts called for Culkin to return as a teenage version of his character. However, Culkin had dropped out of acting. As a result, the idea was changed to make an entirely new film centering on a new cast of characters.
Reception
The film grossed $79,000,000 worldwide[1]. Home Alone 3 holds a 24% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews and was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for "Worst Remake or Sequel."[2]
Characters
References
External links
