''Yikes! I did it again!''

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2017)

'Home Alone' bust box office figures when it first appeared in 1990, spawning video game spin-offs and making a celebrity of its star, Macaulay Culkin. A sequel then was a racing certainty. Two years later, it appeared, under the title 'Home Alone 2 - Lost In New York'.
A year has passed ( in the context of the film at least ) since Kevin's hair raising being left at home alone experience. On the night before a Christmas vacation to Florida, Kevin is in trouble yet again after getting into another brawl with his older brother Buzz. After being reprimanded by his mother, Kevin wishes aloud that he was able to go on his own vacation without his family. The following morning, the family ( surprise surprise ) sleep through their alarm again ( as Peter, Kevin's dad, absent mindedly unplugged it the night before ), causing them to leave for the airport in a tearing hurry. Unfortunately, whilst Kevin manages to make it to the airport with his family, he ends up getting lost in the crowd and ends up accidentally boarding a flight to New York whilst his family are flying to Florida.
Kevin's initial shock is turned to joy when he realises he is left alone to have his own vacation and so checks himself into The Plaza Hotel using his father's credit card ( which he has as he was holding his dad's bag at the airport when he got lost ). Kevin eventually flees from the hotel when he is confronted by the staff about the card, whereupon he runs into Harry and Marv, who have recently bust out of jail and have renamed themselves 'The Sticky Bandits' instead of 'The Wet Bandits'. The try to exact revenge on Kevin and follow him when he seeks refuge in the house of one of his relatives, which is under renovation. The goons yet again ( well, you knew it was coming, didn't you? ) fall foul to Kevin's various booby traps that he has hastily set around the house. The two eventually get arrested after their location was made known by 'the pigeon lady', a homeless old lady who tends to the pigeons in the park and ( like Old Man Marley from the first film ) who Kevin was at first afraid of but later befriended.
Eventually, Kevin is reunited happily with his family when they arrive in New York after the police managed to track Kevin down.
'Home Alone 2 - Lost In New York' is in some ways better than it predecessor, partly due to the wonderful location shooting in New York and mainly due to the toning up of Harry and Marv's suffering at the hands of Kevin. At one point, Marv is electrocuted, has a bag of cement dumped on his head, is struck in the face repeatedly with bricks and shot in the groin with a nail gun whilst Harry yet again has his head torched with a blow lamp, is crushed against a wall by a tool chest and thrown into the air and on top of a parked car. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are as hilarious as ever as Harry and Marv but it is again Culkin who shines throughout. John Hughes' script yet again is full of many wonderful one liners, particularly when Harry and Marv arrive in New York after sneaking to the back of a fish lorry, which leads to a hilarious debate between Harry and Marv about the difference between the smell of freedom and fish ( I won't even attempt to do it justice here ). Like the first, a computer game version of this film was released the same year for both the Sega and Nintendo systems.
Catherine O'Hara, John Heard, Devin Ratray, Kieran Culkin and Gerry Bamman all reprise their roles as Kevin's family whilst appearing in the supporting cast are Tim Curry, Dana Ivey, Rob Schneider, Brenda Fricker and Eddie Bracken. Donald Trump ( yuck ) makes a surprise cameo appearance in the first scene shot in the plaza hotel.
Plans for a third 'Home Alone' film came to fruition in the late '90's which was initially to have Culkin reprise his role, this time as a teenage Kevin McAllister. However, Culkin passed on the role and it went instead to Alex D. Linz who played Alex Pruddit. 'Home Alone 3' was not surprisingly as well received as the first two but was successful nonetheless, which is more that could be said for 'Home Alone 4' ( which had Mark Weinberg as Kevin McAllister and appeared in 2003 ). Audiences groaned! The 2012 television film 'Home Alone - The Holiday Heist' was no better.
A great Christmas romp to be enjoyed by the family over and over again!
Funniest moment - the aforementioned 'freedom' and 'fish' moment!