When I was younger my sister and I did indulge in occasional viewings of the original Home Alone and I always plotted ways to protect our house from robbers just like Macaulay Culkin. Despite the amount of enjoyment we got out of that one I didn't get around to watching Home Alone 2: Lost in New York until very recently.

The McCallister family is planning on going on vacation for Christmas again, this time to Miami, Florida. They make it out the door with young Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) this time, unlike their last ill-fated Christmas vacation, but with the vast collection of family they manage to lose him at the airport and Kevin ends up on a plane to New York instead.

Once there he uses his dad's (John Heard) credit card to get a room at a ritzy hotel (with Tim Curry as concierge) and then goes on a shopping spree. But, as chance would have it, the two robbers he framed last go around have escaped. Wouldn't you know, Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) are planning on robbing the same toy store that Kevin just got out of and happen to notice the name on his bag from behind and take after him. Amazing that in the entire country those three would end up on the same street corner at the same time in a city of millions of people.

What ensues is pretty much exactly the same as the original Home Alone. I'm not joking. All the same tricks, all the same catchy lines, and the same sappy ending. The only thing that really changed is the place, and this time Kevin made two friends instead of just the scary next-door neighbor (a homeless lady in the park and the owner of the toy store).

You'll see the paint can scene, the "sticky bandits" line, the use of the video to scare off people thinking there's an insane man with a gun after them, the "come and get me you horse's a**" line and many more. Some of these are the reasons I wouldn't want my little kids watching it too much because I don't want them thinking it's alright to talk to adults like that, buy maybe that's just me.

If you've seen the first movie there's not really much point in seeing the second, the first had a little more context to the story and was slightly more believable. This second has a fairly unbelievable premise and has little if any original content, they seem to have just re-written the original script to match the New York setting.

All-in-all, if you have little kids that loved the first Home Alone they'll probably love Lost in New York, but anyone older will probably be tearing their hair out at the agonizing similarities between the two.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8