“It’s the ghost! We’ve angered the dead!”

Justin’s rating: But where’s John McClane to stop these dastardly high-class thieves?

Justin’s review: Subjecting myself to plowing through each and every Home Alone movie has taught me a few things, apart from “everything after the second movie is hot garbage.”

First is that no respectable character actor is above a cheap paycheck, even if it means being humiliated by a pre-pubescent kid on camera. Second is that absolutely nobody who made the last four films recognized what actually worked in the original duology. And third is realizing that all of these sequels are fairly well spaced-out. Home Alone 3 came out in ’97, Home Alone 4 in 2002, Home Alone 5 in 2012, and Home Alone 6 in 2021.

I guess we’re at the point where we should expect one of these every decade from now until all of the people who were alive to see the original in 1990 are dead? At least Home Alone: The Holiday Heist feels like it’s a slight return to form after the enormous missteps of the previous film.

Brother and sister Finn (Christian Martyn) and Alexis (Jodelle Farland) aren’t too thrilled to move from California to Maine. They’re even less excited once they hear that their mysterious new house may be haunted by a murdered gangster, but c’mon, this is Stephen King’s backyard. What did you expect?

I honestly didn’t expect the Home Alone series to go Scooby Doo on us, but at least this is a novel twist. As the kids try to track down the possible ghost, a trio of art thieves stage an assault of the house to find the gangster’s $85 million Edvard Munch painting that may be hidden inside. Time for those scrappy kids to introduce adults to the joys of emergency hip and spinal surgeries!

And did I mention that the head thief is Malcolm McDowell? This is absolutely slumming for his level of talent, and this film should thank its lucky stars to get him. The crooks also sport Empire Records’ Debi Mazar because my life isn’t surreal enough this week.

Stepping back a bit, it’s odd that these two kids are so addicted to their screen time that they can’t — or won’t — be social, even to their parents, whom they walk all over. Finn and Alexis aren’t terrible characters when they’re not trying to kill burglars with traps, but this part of their personalities did have me fuming. The film acts like they have no idea how to talk to other people, read books, or even play. How did these parents raise these kids? Did they slap an iPhone to their faces the moment they were out of the womb?

If it takes a ghost and some burglars to get them out of their shells, then so be it. This works out well, as all of the ghost-catching traps are easily adapted to the cause of taking down the robbers, especially when the parents go away for a party during a blizzard.

You know what is a welcome return to form for this series? The burglars have a great comedic rapport. McDowell gets to be bossy and British, Mazar is overly emotional about a recent break-up, and the safecracker guy is kind of low-key goofy. And yes, they get beat up and freaked out by many of Finn’s traps that he sets up around the place to attempt to make them think that this place is actually haunted. I didn’t exactly laugh, but an amused noise escaped my throat a few times at their escapades.

What is less welcome is too much time spent following the parents around at their corporate party. It’s obvious filler with a lot of sweaty desperate “jokes” that kept taking time away from the kids v. burglars. And c’mon, when you have Malcolm McDowell, you need to feature him as much as possible. I consider his character the hero of this movie who deserved to claim the painting that he so clearly loves.

Maybe my expectations were so lowered over the last two Home Alones, but I was genuinely surprised when Holiday Heist was a halfway competent (TV) film with good acting, a few jokes that actually land, snappy editing, Christmas tunes galore, and at least one new idea for this franchise. I mean, it doesn’t feel anything like the original flicks, but on its own, it does all right for itself.

Plus, it’s got a ghost. Kind of.

PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE AND STOP ACTING LIKE YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME ALEXIS

Intermission!

• It’s a mega boss battle! What is that! I’ve played video games my whole life and never heard that term!
• Apparently California never gets snow
• This dad is too easily impressed by everything
• “You must be the wee ones.” “That’s the wee ones!”
• Nice Hogwarts reference
• Internet gaming friends is a novel strangeness to this dad
• Hey it’s a fully furnished basement with a secret door and giant safe, like all our basements
• “Dead Leg is watching you”
• “I’d like to hang out with you, but I’m too young to die.”
• Did he just taser his dad? And no repercussions? And where did this kid get a stun gun?
• I don’t think you can be that bad with a snowblower unless you’re acting out. Also, that’s a rather paltry amount of snow, I wouldn’t even bother with snowblowing if it was my house.
• The safecracker eating all the cookies: “Is that a no go on a glass of milk?”
• “Put on your shoes, I’m going to murder your sister.”
• It’s actually refreshing to see kids enjoying being home alone and goofing around like Kevin did in the first film
• Every house should have a secret speakeasy in the basement
• Code Red! Code Red!
• That snow fort kid has been making snowballs for the past 48 hours nonstop
• Hardware stores won’t sell over $2,000 worth of gear to a kid with a personal check
• AHH FINN HAS MULTIPLIED IN A MONTAGE!
• OK I thought it was pretty amusing that Alexis got sucked into a book
• Finn, go plug in the phone and call 911 already
• The mom is afraid of getting fired if she… leaves a party?
• “I WILL RUIN YOU” got a good laugh out of me
• The poltergeist scene is fun times
• A gift-wrapped burglar!
• The poor gamer getting swatted
• Steve called!
• The bike snow thrower is pretty ingenuous
• All the SWAT guys cheering at the camera footage
• How badly did the filmmakers wanted to work in “The Scream” painting into a series where a kid makes the scream face?
• That’s a pretty cruddy finder’s fee for an $85M painting