Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Instead of flying to Florida with his folks, Kevin ends up alone in New York, where he gets a hotel room with his dad's credit card—despite problems from a clerk and meddling bellboy. But when Kevin runs into his old nemeses, the Wet Bandits, he's determined to foil their plans to rob a toy store on Christmas Eve.
Home Alone 2 is a blatant retread of the original, relocating the action to New York but recycling virtually the same beats, structure, and slapstick set pieces. Novelty suffers severely — it is one of the more formulaic sequels of its era, offering almost nothing that wasn't done better in the first film. The plot is thin and contrived even by family-comedy standards, leaning on implausible coincidences to get Kevin alone again. Acting is serviceable: Macaulay Culkin remains charming, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern commit gamely to the physical comedy, and Tim Curry adds some fun. Cinematography captures New York at Christmas with reasonable warmth and energy, giving the film a glossy holiday look. The ending delivers the expected warm reunion and villain comeuppance in crowd-pleasing fashion, satisfying on its own terms even if wholly predictable.