Home Alone 3

Home Alone 3
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Raja Gosnell
Produced by
Written by John Hughes
Starring
Music by Nick Glennie-Smith
Cinematography Julio Macat
Edited by
Production
company
Hughes Entertainment
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date
  • December 12, 1997 (1997-12-12)
Running time
 102 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $32 million[1]
Box office $79.1 million[1]

Home Alone 3 (stylized as HOME ALONe3) 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 films (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, an 8-year-old 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, in 2002.

Plot

Peter Beaupre, Alice Ribbons, Burton Jernigan, and Earl Unger are four internationally wanted hitmen working for a North Korean terrorist organization who have stolen a $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 passenger, Mrs. Hess, to inadvertently take the thieves' bag containing the remote control car while she is returning home to Chicago. The four thieves arrive in Chicago and later systematically search every house in Mrs. Hess' suburban neighborhood to find the chip.

Meanwhile, Alex Pruitt is given the remote control car by Mrs. Hess for shoveling snow, but she lectures him for scratching numerous itches. Alex 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. Alex fails to convince the police twice, so he decides to spy on the thieves by using his toy car and a video camera instead. The thieves discover it and take away the evidence, which results in a chase. Wondering what the thieves want with a remote control car, Alex opens it and discovers the stolen chip, and later informs the local Air Force Recruitment Center about the chip while asking if they can forward the information about the chip to the proper authorities. The news eventually reaches FBI Agent Stuckey, who heads for Chicago.

The thieves finally 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 Mrs. Hess to a chair in her garage and leaves the door open. By this point, Alex has rigged his house with booby traps and prepares to set them off with his pet rat, Doris, and his brother's loud-mouthed pet parrot. After their numerous break-in attempts are foiled by Alex's traps, the thieves infiltrate the house and search for Alex. Alex flees to the attic and takes the dumbwaiter down to the basement, then 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 the frozen swimming pool. Alice wriggles her way into the dumbwaiter chute, but falls down to the basement and is incapacitated, Alex having removed the bottom. Alex is cornered by Beaupre while trying to rescue Mrs. Hess, but scares him off with a bubble gun resembling a Glock. Meanwhile, Stuckey and the police arrives at Alex's school and informs his family of the chip. Alex's family brings the FBI to their house; Alice, Jernigan and Unger are arrested, but Beaupre hides inside 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.

The Pruitts hold a celebration for Alex's success while their house is being repaired. Mrs. Hess, who befriends Alex after he saves her from freezing to death in her garage, attends the celebration with the FBI and the police. They are joined by Alex's father, who returns home from his business trip in New York City. The thieves are shown having their mugshot photos taken and have all contracted 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 teenage Kevin McCallister, along with Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci reprising their roles as the two burglars. 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
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released December 12, 1997
Label Universal Music Int'l
Home Alone chronology
Home Alone 2
(1992) Home Alone 21992		 Home Alone 3
(1997) Home Alone 31997
Track listing
No.TitleArtist(s)Length
1."My Town"Cartoon Boyfriend3:18
2."All I Wanted Was a Skateboard"Super Deluxe2:34
3."I Want It All"Dance Hall Crashers3:19
4."Almost Grown"Chuck Berry2:20
5."School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)"Chuck Berry2:42
6."Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" (version not in the film)Jim Croce3:01
7."Green-Eyed Lady" (version not in the film)Sugarloaf3:40
8."Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"Dean Martin1:57
9."Home Again"Oingo Boingo5:26
10."Nite Prowler"The Deuce Coupes1:46
11."Tall Cool One"The Wailers2:35
12."Home Alone 3 Suite"Nick Glennie-Smith8:01

Reception

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

Home Alone 3 holds an approval rating of 30% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 4.4/10[2] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[3]

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

The film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake or Sequel, where it lost to Speed 2: Cruise Control.

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 October 5, 1999, which was later reissued in December 2007 (and again in 2006 and 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. 1 2 3 4 "Home Alone 3 (1997)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Home Alone 3 (1997)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  3. ↑ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.
  4. ↑ Ebert, Roger (December 12, 1997). "Home Alone 3". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved December 8, 2016.
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