Hughes finished writing the film by February 1991, after signing a six-picture deal with 20th Century Fox. Culkin's return was confirmed in May, and the rest of the cast was finalized soon after. Principal photography took place between December 1991 and May 1992, and was done on location in Illinois and New York, including at the Rockefeller Center and the original World Trade Center.
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was theatrically released in the United States by 20th Century Fox on November 20, 1992. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the performances while criticizing its darker tone and violence, as well as its similarities to the first film. The film grossed over $359 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 1992. A standalone sequel with a new cast, Home Alone 3, was released in 1997. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is the only Home Alone sequel to feature the majority of the cast from the first film; Devin Ratray reprised his role as Buzz McCallister in the sixth film in the franchise, Home Sweet Home Alone.
Plot
The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Miami, and gathers at Kate and Peter's Chicago home. Their youngest son, Kevin, views Florida as contradictory to Christmas, due to its tropical climate and lack of Christmas trees.
At a school Christmas pageant, during Kevin's solo, his older brother Buzz embarrasses him; Kevin retaliates by pushing him, which causes the entire choir to fall and ruins the pageant. At home, Buzz makes a false apology to Kevin, which the family accepts, but Kevin refuses to apologize for his actions and berates his family for believing Buzz's lies and for wanting to spend Christmas in Florida. He storms off to the attic, wishing to have his own vacation alone.
The next morning, the family oversleeps and rushes to the airport. Kevin goes with them, but he becomes separated while carrying Peter's bag and accidentally boards a flight to New York City. Upon arrival, he decides to tour the city and encounters a homeless woman tending to pigeons in Central Park, who scares him off. He uses Peter's credit card to check in at the Plaza Hotel, not knowing that the Wet Bandits have also reached the city after escaping from prison.
On Christmas Eve, Kevin visits a toy store whose kindly owner, Mr. Duncan, plans to donate the day's sale proceeds to a children's hospital. After Kevin makes a donation, Mr. Duncan gives him a pair of ceramic turtledoves in thanks, instructing him to give one to another person as a gesture of eternal friendship. The concierge at the Plaza confronts Kevin about his use of Peter's credit card, now reported as stolen; Kevin flees the hotel but is caught by the Wet Bandits. Marv mentions his and Harry's plan to rob the toy store before Kevin escapes in an encounter with a female passerby.
Earlier, upon landing in Miami, the McCallister family discover that Kevin is missing and file a police report. After the police trace Peter's credit card, the family flies immediately to New York. Meanwhile, Kevin goes to his uncle's townhouse, only to find it vacant and undergoing renovations. In Central Park, Kevin encounters and eventually befriends the pigeon lady, who takes him to Carnegie Hall. She explains how her life collapsed when her lover left her, and Kevin encourages her to trust people again. After considering her advice that he perform a good deed to make up for his misdeeds, and recalling Mr. Duncan's intent to donate to the hospital, he decides to prevent the toy store robbery.
Kevin rigs the townhouse with booby traps, catches Harry and Marv in the process of robbing the store, and breaks its front window to set off the alarm. After taking their picture, he lures them to the townhouse where they repeatedly injure themselves in the traps. Kevin evades them, calls the police from a pay phone, and flees toward Central Park. Harry and Marv catch him after he slips on ice and prepare to shoot him, but the pigeon lady throws a bucket of birdseed onto them, attracting a massive flock of pigeons and incapacitating the pair until the police arrive to arrest them. Kevin slips away, leaving photographic and tape-recorded evidence against Harry and Marv, and Mr. Duncan recovers the donation money and finds a note from Kevin explaining the broken window. The McCallisters arrives in New York, and Kate, remembering Kevin's fondness for Christmas trees, finds him making a wish at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
On Christmas morning, a truckload of free gifts arrives at the McCallisters' hotel room, sent from a grateful Mr. Duncan for foiling the robbery. Kevin reconciles with his family and gives one of his turtledoves to the pigeon lady, cementing their friendship.
Cast
Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, a 10-year-old boy with a penchant for creating harmful inventions
Joe Pesci as Harry, a thief and one of the Sticky Bandits duo
Daniel Stern as Marv, a thief and another of the Sticky Bandits duo who serves as Harry's partner
Gerry Bamman as Uncle Frank, Kevin's uncle and Peter's older brother
Terrie Snell as Aunt Leslie, Kevin's aunt
Jedidiah Cohen as Rod, Kevin's older cousin and the older son of Rob and Georgette, who is living with Uncle Frank and Aunt Leslie to attend high school
Senta Moses as Tracy, Kevin's older cousin and the eldest daughter of Frank and Leslie
Daiana Campeanu as Sondra, Kevin's older cousin and the second daughter of Frank and Leslie
Kieran Culkin as Fuller, Kevin's youngest cousin and the younger son of Frank and Leslie
Anna Slotky as Brooke, Kevin's younger cousin and the youngest daughter of Frank and Leslie
Tim Curry as Mr. Hector[5][6] (credited as "Concierge"), the concierge at the Plaza Hotel who is suspicious of Kevin
Brenda Fricker as the Pigeon Lady, an unnamed woman who lives in Central Park, spending her life feeding pigeons, who befriends Kevin while he is lost in New York
Eddie Bracken as Mr. Duncan, the proprietor of Duncan's Toy Chest
Dana Ivey as Hester Stone (credited as "Desk Clerk"), the desk clerk at the Plaza Hotel
Rob Schneider as Cedric[5][7] (credited as "Bellman"), the bellhop at the Plaza Hotel
Ralph Foody as Johnny (credited as "Gangster"), a gangster from the fictional film Angels with Even Filthier Souls, a sequel to Angels with Filthy Souls from the previous film
Clare Hoak as Gangster - "Dame", Johnny's girlfriend from the fictional film Angels with Even Filthier Souls
In February 1991, the Los Angeles Times reported that John Hughes was to sign a six-picture deal with 20th Century Fox; among the projects was a sequel to Home Alone.[8] In May 1991, Culkin was paid $4.5 million plus 5 percent of the film's gross to appear in the sequel,[9] compared to $110,000 for the original. The production budget was $28 million.[3]
Pesci suffered burns to his head while filming the scene in which Harry's hat is set on fire.[15]
Music
John Williams returned to score Home Alone 2, as well as other festive tracks. While the film featured the first film's theme song "Somewhere in My Memory" (with lyrics by Bette Midler), it also contained its own theme entitled "Christmas Star" (lyrics by Leslie Bricusse).[16] Two soundtrack albums of the film were released on November 20, 1992, with one featuring Williams' score and the other featuring Christmas songs featured in the film.[17] Ten years later, a 2-disc Deluxe Edition of the film score soundtrack was released by Varèse Sarabande.[18]
The film was first released by Fox Video on VHS and LaserDisc on July 27, 1993. It was later released on DVD on October 5, 1999, as a basic package.[25] The film was released on Blu-ray on October 6, 2009, with no special features,[26] and was released alongside Home Alone in a collection pack on October 5, 2010.[27] The film was reissued again on DVD and Blu-ray on October 6, 2015, alongside all five Home Alone franchise films, titled Home Alone: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Christmas Edition.[28]
Reception
Box office
Home Alone 2 opened with $31.1 million from 2,222 theaters, averaging $14,009 per site.[29][30] It broke the short-lived record set one week earlier by Bram Stoker's Dracula for having the largest November opening weekend.[31] The film went on to hold this record until 1994 when it was taken by Interview with the Vampire.[32] Additionally, it achieved the highest opening weekend for a Chris Columbus film and would hold that record until it was surpassed by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 2001.[33] It started off better than Home Alone, grossing $100 million in 24 days compared to 33 days for the original.[1] However the final box office gross was lower with $173.6 million in the United States and Canada and a worldwide total of $359 million,[4] compared to $476 million for the first film.[34] The film was released in the United Kingdom on December 11, 1992, and topped the country's box office that weekend.[35] The film is the third-highest-grossing film released in 1992 behind The Bodyguard and Aladdin.[36] In the United States and Canada, it grossed more than The Bodyguard and ranked second.[37]
Critical response
Initial
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 35% based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "A change of venue – and more sentimentality and violence – can't obscure the fact that Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is a less inspired facsimile of its predecessor."[38] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[39] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, a grade lower than the "A" earned by its predecessor.[40][41]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two out of four stars and stated that "cartoon violence is only funny in cartoons. Most of the live-action attempts to duplicate animation have failed, because when flesh-and-blood figures hit the pavement, we can almost hear the bones crunch, and it isn't funny."[42]Kenneth Turan, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, wrote: "Whatever was unforced and funny in the first film has become exaggerated here, whatever was slightly sentimental has been laid on with a trowel. The result, with some exceptions, plays like an over-elaborate parody of the first film, reminding us why we enjoyed it without being able to duplicate its appeal."[43]Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune wrote the sequel "plays like a coarsened, self-parodying version of the original, in which the fantasy elements have become grubbier and more materialistic, the sentimentality more treacly and aggressive, and the slapstick violence—already astonishingly intense in the first film—even more graphic and sadistic."[44] Brian Lowry of Variety noted the sequel's derivativeness when compared to the original film, but wrote the "action sequences are well-choreographed, if, perhaps, too mean-spirited even in light of their cartoonish nature".[45]
Janet Maslin for The New York Times acknowledged that "Home Alone 2 may be lazily conceived, but it is staged with a sense of occasion and a lot of holiday cheer. The return of Mr. Culkin in this role is irresistible, even if this utterly natural comic actor has been given little new to do. Mr. Pesci and Mr. Stern bring great gusto to their characters' stupidity, to the point where they are far funnier just walking and talking than they are being hurt."[46] Reviewing for Time magazine, Richard Schickel noted "Home Alone 2 precisely follows the formula that made its predecessor the biggest grossing comedy in human history. But no, it is not a drag, and it is not a rip-off. Look on it as a twice-told fairy tale." He praised Hughes and Chris Columbus and felt "the details of the situations are developed vividly and originally. And they are presented with an energy and a conviction that sequels usually lack."[47] Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that while the "sequel is merely a superimposition of the original, kids will be delighted" by it. He further praised Culkin as "breezily winning", felt Pesci and Stern deserved combat medals, and Curry served as "a terrific foil for Kevin's pranks".[48]
Retrospective
During the 21st century, online reviewers have looked more favorably on the film. John Nugent of Empire magazine, in a 2022 article entitled 'Why Home Alone 2: Lost In New York Is Better Than Home Alone', argued that the film was "a sequel that effectively also functions as a remake, a film that recognises the greatness of what came before and wisely hews as close to that winning formula as possible." Nugent also opined that "by setting the final showdown in a house undergoing renovations, the filmmakers give themselves room to be more ambitious, wild, and far more brutal" and praised the work of stunt coordinator Freddie Hice since no CGI was used.[49] Also writing in 2022, Reid Goldberg of Collider noted: "A significant part of the film's appeal... is that it's unapologetic in taking everything they loved about the first film to a higher level."[50]
A third film with a new cast, Home Alone 3, followed in 1997. Two television movies, Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House, which features returning characters but with a different cast, and Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, aired in 2002 and 2012, respectively. Home Sweet Home Alone, the sixth film in the series which has Devin Ratray reprise his role as Buzz, was released on the streaming service Disney+ in 2021.
Novelization
Home Alone 2 was novelized by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1992 to coincide with the film. The "point" version, which has the same storyline, was also novelized by A.L. Singer. It has an ISBN of 0-590-45717-9. An audiobook version was also released read by Tim Curry (who played the concierge in the film).
As in the novelization of the first film, the McCallisters live in Oak Park, Illinois and the crooks are named as Harry Lime and Marv Murchins.[citation needed] The novel also takes place one year after the events of the first film, but the ages of Kevin and his siblings are given as being two years older than the first film.
In the beginning of the novelization, a prologue, which ends up being Marv's nightmare in prison, he and Harry sneak away from the cops and return to Kevin's house to seek revenge on Kevin. Kevin bolts into the garage with Marv and Harry in hot pursuit. Harry and Marv end up triggering extra traps that Kevin had set up in the garage. Kevin watches as Marv ends up triggering a trap where a running lawnmower falls on his head (this was a trap featured in Home Alone 3).[citation needed]
^"CinemaScore". Archived from the original on December 10, 2019. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
^Fraser, Jill Andresky (December 4, 1992). "Making the grade with filmgoers". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on October 10, 2022. Retrieved July 5, 2022. Despite the violence, women liked the film more than men did. Overall, Cinemascore gave the movie an "A-."
