User reviews

What can I really say about this film? The kid is stupid (he didn't even know he had to pay at a hardware store) and annoying, the entire plot revolves around ghosts (?) and overall the film was pretty much painful to watch. Luckily I had friends there so we could play MST3K and ridicule the film's stupidity. This film is only really fun if you are drunk or prepared to laugh at it. I would go into a rant about how awful this flick is, but it's so forgettable and ridiculous that I don't have much to say. What I will say, though, is that it at least is a better effort than 4, but it's still a God-awful movie and one that deserves to be quickly forgotten and buried in an unmarked grave.

...Stick with the first three.

The Home Alone franchise pumps out a fifth attempt at recapturing what the first two managed to achieve. In this sequel, the Baxter family moves into a creepy old house in which people believe may be haunted. The young Baxter child named Finn is left home alone (with his sister...) while his parents go off to some fancy Christmas party. Meanwhile, there are three thieves who want to break in to the house and try to retrieve a very expensive painting. Finn discovers their plan, and in true Home Alone fashion, sets up numerous booby traps that will no doubt lead to some bruised and battered bad guys.

Home Alone 5 does a few things well. I liked the location shots of the creepy old house, and I really liked the villains in this film. In fact, I found the most enjoyable parts where when the three thieves were on- screen. Malcolm McDowell, Debi Mazar and Eddie Steeples are terrific as the bumbling criminals. Everything other than that is a failure. The boy is never REALLY home alone. His sister is locked in the basement downstairs after trapping herself in the walk in vault where the expensive painting is. I did not like some of the acting from the family, and I did not like the direction they took with some of the characters. The mother is written as just some over-hyper super bitch, who doesn't seem to give a damn about her kids most of the time. It was a weird dynamic between her and the rest of the family. Oh and like every other who tried to match him, The child actor in this one is no where close to Macaulay Culkin and his performance in the original films. He isn't bad, but with these sequels you can't help but compare to the best of the best.

Home Alone: The Holiday Heist does try, a lot more than the dreadful Home Alone 4 did. However it just isn't a great movie nor does it add ANYTHING to the Home Alone franchise. I always appreciated the third film because it branched off a bit from the usual cookie-cutter plot of the previous two Home Alone films, but this one stuck to simplicity.

4/10

The Baxters move into their new Maine house for the mother's new job with her boss Mr. Carson (Edward Asner). They don't know the house once belonged to a bootlegger with a rumored valuable missing painting. Older daughter Alexis (Jodelle Ferland) don't like the move. Younger son Finn is always playing his video game. He discovers a walk-in safe in the basement and befriends neighbor Mason who warns him that his house is haunted. Sinclair (Malcolm McDowell), Jessica (Debi Mazar) and idiot safecracker Hughes (Eddie Steeples) are thieves looking to sneak in and steal all the valuables.

There are lots of great actors especially the bumbling villains. I'm actually surprised but I guess that even Malcolm McDowell needs to eat. The lead kid is not good enough and a little too old for an adorable role. It's not all his fault. There is no comparison to the fun of the original. By the time the iconic home-made traps appear, it becomes a sad copy rather than a fun homage. This movie is completely flat with no actual humor. The great actors can't do much other than collecting paychecks.

Back when Home Alone 4 came out, for some insane reason, I gave it an above-lukewarm review, which is a million times what it deserved as it was utterly terrible. Now, 10 years later, Fox have went back to Home Alone for a new Xmas TV movie special. It's watchable, but it ain't no classic.

Finn Baxter (and his haircut from 1994) moves into an old house in New England with his parents and older sister. He's addicted to video games and she's addicted to staring at her cell phone. Since most kids are like this nowadays I would have the preferred the unrealistic, healthy, proactive types. Kevin McCallister was a misfit, not a stereotype. Finn is a sorry reflection of today's youth.

Hidden in the basement is a prohibition era hooch bar with a priceless painting hanging on the wall. Three bumbling thieves, including Malcolm "I'll do anything for a paycheck" McDowell and the unusually attractive Debi Mazar, want to get their hands on it and plan a robbery while the parents are at some Xmas party in the mountains. Kevin...I mean Finn, defends the house with booby traps while his sister is trapped in the hooch bar.

Harry and Marv were the kind of idiots who made for good comedy when getting tortured. But the thieves in this movie are not really that bad, and I kinda felt that they deserved to get the painting. Why should I root for a shut-in child and his torn-faced sister? John Williams gets a 'themes by' credit but approximately 1% of his famous Home Alone score is used, and on top of that it's a bit too loud and overbearing. And since the parents are loud, reactionary idiots I saw no point in wishing for them to reunite with their kids.

Saying it is better than 4 is like saying that AIDS is better than cancer, but it makes for a pleasant, one-off addition to your Xmas movie list.

Bizarre. Simply bizarre. It was the death of the legacy of Home Alone. The cast was disgraceful. I am astounded and can't figure out why in the world would these actors were allowed to act in this movie. I was looking forward to it and am really disappointed. The story itself wasn't that bad. I have to admit that if it was a book and I read it when I was 7 years old, I might have had a good laugh but again we are talking about 'Home Alone' here. Not just any comedy movie series. As a kid I enjoyed all of the 'Home Alone' thoroughly and watched them over and over. Even as a 20 years old I have had a good laugh out of them. This on the other hand, awful.

It took me years to watch this one. The first two Home Alone movies are great. I might like the second a little more than the first but it really is a battle for first. I used to hate the third one until I saw part 4 and now it's up to okay. The fourth one was abysmal.

So now we have Holiday Heist as another way to cash in on the franchise. I think I like the story on this one a little bit more but I can't for the life of me figure out why Malcolm McDowell is in this. I guess since it worked for Joe Peschi, it should work for him.

So like this kid who is obsessed with video games moves in with his parents and his sister into a new house. Kid (who's name is Finn) thinks the house is haunted so he sets traps for the ghosts. Meanwhile Malcolm McDowell, Snoop Dogg and some chick are planning to break into the house to steal some painting so naturally this leads to what all Home Alone movies lead to: the traps.

As expected, they are pretty lame. Like Malcolm McDowell gets wrapped like a present, thrown downstairs and end up under a Christmas tree. Poor Malcolm even hangs upside down on Christmas lights. Chick gets stuck in a window. I mean, the traps are better than 4 but that film is so bad that anything can only go up from there.

Now that I can say I watched all the Home Alone movies, I'll pretend the last two doesn't exist. Every now and then on Christmas, I'll watch the third one but the first two is always a Christmas tradition. This one is not.

"Home Alone: The Holiday Heist" is a Comedy - Family movie in which we watch a young child creating some traps in order to catch a ghost at his new home. Soon enough will find himself protecting both his home and his sister from three art thieves.

I did not enjoy this movie because it used the title "Home Alone" in order to gain reputation but failed to keep it up. The plot was simple and boring without any surprises or something new that we have not watched yet. The direction which was made by Peter Hewitt was not the best and he did not succeed on creating a nice, festive atmosphere in the movie in order to make the audience feel the feeling of Christmas. In addition to this, the use of "Home Alone" was not the best choice as it was compared with the previous movies of the "Home Alone" franchise. All in all, I have to say that "Home Alone: The Holiday Heist" is a below the average comedy movie and I do not recommend it to anyone.

Better than home alone 4 but still not worth much.

The acting is meh.

You got your cliche mean grumpy sister

You have your loner gamer Son

wimpy Dad

Bossy mom.

The movie is basically like any Home Alone movie with booby traps and dumb burglars.

This movie should be called Home Alone: The Holiday Cliche.

my problem with this film is that the bad guys were not bad people. He was a treasure hunter at best and cared for nothing but a painting. and the other two were dumb, but nice the entire movie,

even in the car scene, "sit down and put on your seat belt"

The reason the first 3 were so great is because we rooted for the kid to win, he is the underdog against dirty, ruthless criminals. Not the case for this movie. I found myself feeling bad for the criminals being attacked, and the attack were so so, i understand there budget isn't there but with todays technology. you can do better Hollywood! everything was so much more well done and real looking in the originals.

I saw the hidden meaning, that kids are isolated with video games/cell phones and should get back to real life, but every-time i watched the kid.. His character to very bratty, cocky and not charming.

Im sure kids will love it, not a bad movie, just lacked and didn't feel "real life" enough.

2.5/5

People judge this film like it has pretended to be a masterpiece.. It's just a nice and lovely family comedy.. I enjoyed this movie a lot.. and it's one of the very few movie that I watched more than once

Over the holiday season my wife and I watched all 6 Home Alone movies.

1 is a classic. 2 should have deviated a bit more for my tastes. 3 was a mess but a parrot capable of critical thought kept me engaged. 4 was an absolute disaster of a movie. 6 was trash. My expectations were low as we rolled into this one but I was pleasantly surprised. It deviated from the formula. Someone actually wrote this movie! I laughed multiple times, it kept me engaged throughout. The booby traps were funny. Hats off! Definitely underrated.

Home alone:the holiday heist is a Christmas film that was released in 2012 like 22 years after the first film,the film I think is a straight to DVD film or a TV film. The film tells the story of Finn and his family who move to a new house but Finn thinks it's haunted by a ghost so he sets up a few booby traps for the ghost when suddenly three burglars break in and they stumble in to the traps. Home alone:the holiday heist had some things I liked somethings I didn't like,I liked that it was creepy in places when he went down to the basement and I loved I mean LOVE the robbers in this film there so good and funny and enjoyable like Harry and Marv and I even liked the kid in the film he was funny too but I think it had a bit too much effort in it that the director tried to hard to make it a home alone sequel that it didn't feel like a home alone movie and I think it's a bit too late now guys for a home alone movie I mean it was 1990 the first film came out like that's a long time ago. Home alone the holiday heist is an OK film that I kinda liked and kinda didn't like but it was a lot better than the dreadful piece of trash that came before it home alone 4. Well that's home alone for ya,it was a good franchise but it didn't turn out to be a great series after number 4. Home alone 6 probably won't happen but if it does its rumored to be about Harry and Marv who forgive Kevin and it's going to be a drama.

It's hard... very hard to beat Home Alone 1 and 2. It's always a deception when trying one more of the serie

Not worth the watch if you have kids over 5 years old

This was awful. Honestly, this had no charm whatsoever. I'm not saying it should measure up to the original 2 but at least make an effort. The mom was annoying, the main child was annoying, I'll pretend this movie never happened.

Admittedly more entertaining than the last entry, but still lacking any wit, decency, or effort- Home Alone 5 is yet another bland sequel of a franchise that should have died off two decades ago. There is little joy to be had during this film, in fact most of the joy I had watching it came rather ironically. The film is obviously aimed towards kids, but it tries far too hard doing so, providing some truly cringeworthy moments and many over the top and dramatic performances. Christian Martyn as Finn Baxter, aka the lead kid in the film, is absolutely God awful- and his forced gamer backstory seems like the laziest piece of character development I have seen in a very long time. The actors playing the parents, whose names I am too lazy to look up at the moment, were also far over the top and so forced that it was almost unbearable to even look at the screen when they were on it. The script is a convoluted mess that you won't care about, or remember the moment the movie ends. It's another schluck filled, gullible criminal extravaganza that simply provides gags that are incredibly unlikely or already been done before in some way or another. In the end, Home Alone 5 wasn't quite the travesty that Home Alone 4 was, but it certainly does come close enough. My Rating: 1.75/10

The acting was so amateur it was laughable at that. I accidentally turned on the last 15-20 minutes thinking it was the original, bored. These people were the worse actors possible so, the show couldn't do much!

Home Alone: The Holday (Christmas?) Heist is an mildly decent film, has a few funny scenes and also stars Malcolm McDowell (from a Clockwork Orange) as the best villain since Harry and Marv. Also stars Eddie Steeples and Debi Mazar as the other baddies. It's not that great but it passes the time and was no where near as stupid as Home Alone 3 and 4, at least a bit of effort was included.

4/10: Don't go looking to watch this but you could do worse

Home Alone: The Holiday Heist is the fifth, and hopefully final, entry into the Home Alone saga. A saga that started great, even brilliant, and has been reduced to an unbearable pile of junk. While this fifth film wasn't quite as bad as the previous one, there isn't much to write home about.

When I began this journey of Home Alone films a little over a week ago, I never would've guessed that it would all lead up to this. Home Alone: The Holiday Heist is certainly the most bizarre of the bunch, but it's also the most boring. It seems to have no direction or cause, and the result, unsurprisingly, is a messy mix of a little bit of everything. It starts with a haunted house set up, which in and of itself is way beyond anything I ever could've expected. However, being a kids film, and a bad one at that, it's never actually scary. And the one thing about haunted house films is that if they aren't scary, they are tremendously boring. Besides taking a crack at being a ghost story, it also tries to copy the original Home Alone. Certain traps for the end battle are straight copies, and some of the most iconic lines are also borrowed. However, while the first film in the series made it all work, this one fails at everything it tries to do.

The story introduces us to Finn, a 10-year-old boy how has just had to move with his family to Maine due to her mothers work. As Finn, and the rest of the family, start to get settled in, he learns that his new home might be haunted. Finn, who is an avid gamer, has an overly active imagination, and he starts to think that the house is indeed haunted. However, as he soon learns, what he had thought to be a ghost, is actually a group of burglars that are trying to break in. The parents being gone, and his sister trapped in a basement, Finn must defend his home against the intruders. The story is certainly the most ambitious of the series. But it also manages to be the dullest and most unimaginative. While I wasn't expecting a haunted house setting, I wouldn't have minded it had it been done well. However, the way it's done leads to a horrendously boring and predictable final result.

While I might've been able to deal with the story, as well as the blatant copying of the original films, what I couldn't deal with, were the characters. They are the most stereotypical characters you can come up with. They all feel like caricatures of the types of people they are trying to portray. Finn is your typical kid who thinks he doesn't need friends because he has his video games. He is scared of everything and would prefer not having to go outside. Alexis, the older sister, is the typical teenager going through her angst phase, locking herself in her room and listening to music while rebelling against her parents. Curtis, the dad, always goes along with everything that the mom says and doesn't have a voice of his own. And finally, Catherine, the mom, is overly strict, doesn't appreciate anything the other family members do and thinks she is always right. While there are certain bits of truth in all of these characters, they are painfully over the top and end up being the death of Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, if it wasn't already dead, to begin with.

I'm glad that I sat through all five films, even though I wish I could get the time I wasted on the last three back. At least now I know that I never need to watch anything but the first two films. Home Alone and Home Alone Lost in New York, are the only worthwhile films, and the only two that deserve to be called Home Alone. The other films, this one included, have nothing to do with the series and should've never been called Home Alone in the first place. I have a feeling that I will be revisiting the original films come Christmas time next year. However, I sincerely hope that this one, as well as the third and fourth films, will never be seen by myself again.

My favorite actor, malcom McDowell plays in this but it still sucks, it's a disgrace to the original home alone movies.

Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012)

** (out of 4)

The fifth film in the series takes the approach of the third one and features no Kevin. Instead, Finn (Christian Martyn) moves to a new house with his family and believes that it must be haunted by the gangster who previously lived there. The little boy sets up traps to catch the ghost but soon realizes that it's three burglars (Malcolm McDowell, Debi Mazar, Eddie Steeples) who are actually trying to break in and steal a priceless painting. HOME ALONE: THE HOLIDAY HEIST doesn't come close to either one of the Culkin pictures but it's certainly miles better than the previous two installments. With that said, there's still a lot of problems with this movie but I suspect kids should really enjoy it since they're the ones this here is really aimed at. This is one of those movies that wasn't aimed for adults as everyone in the film acts pretty silly and this includes the thieves and the parents. The only mature ones are the kids, when it counts, as they have to protect the house. The gadgets here aren't all that memorable but there are a few funny moments for the thieves including a glass a glue and Mazar's butt slapping was actually done well. Martyn is certainly a step up from the previous two kids and for the most part I thought he was fine. I thought McDowell was pretty good in the role of the burglar as was Mazar and even Steeples for that matter. They certainly can't match Pesci and Stern but who could? While the film remains slightly entertaining, there's still no question that there wasn't a real reason for this to be made. It doesn't improve on anything from the first two films but I'm sure kids might enjoy it.

People can complain about anything and that is a fact.

This tv movie its not made to be a masterpiece, it's a christmas tv movie. Made in 2012.

Watched like 3-4 times now.

It's one of the very few movies that i can enjoy relaxed with my family.

No violence, no stres, good family vibes.

What do you want more?

This film copped a bad wrap when it was announced due to Home Alone 4 ("Home Alone: Taking Back The House"). That film may be the worst film ever made. This is actually quite good. It's at least as good as, if not better than, Home Alone 3. It doesn't come close to capturing the first two Home Alone movies, but for what it is, it's actually worth watching.

A lot of people ask "Why was this made?". It was made, like all movies, to be entertainment. It does its job there. In addition to main "kid" (Christian Martyn) of the film, there is Finn's younger neighbour (Peter DaCunha)and his older sister (Jodelle Ferland). All of them are well cast and avoid the "annoying kid syndrome" that plagues so many movies. The parents. DaCunha is particular good and had me laughing every time he was on screen.

This time there are three thieves (Malcom McDowell, Debi Mazar and Eddie Steeples). All three are good. They don't make the impact of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern by any means, but compared to the unmemorable thieves in Home Alone 3 and the god-awful French Stewart in Home Alone 4 (to be fair Missi Pyle was the ONLY good thing about that movie), the three do really well.

The parents (Ellie Harvey and Doug Murray) are a bit annoying but have their funny moments, the mum in particular. The movie is surprisingly well-directed and avoids many TV movie pitfalls. Only a few times did it feel "cheap", which is quite an achievement for a TV movie and one of the biggest faults of the fourth movie. The story isn't bad for one of these films and manages to capture the basic structure of a Home Alone film without copying it.

It's not the most brilliant film you've ever watched, but no one expects it to be. For me, it was a surprise how good this was. It made me nostalgic, having grown up with the originals, and I think kids would really dig it.

It does what it sets out to do quite well and manages to be entertaining. Definitely worth a look.

This movie is totally not worth watching. Almost same story, same expressions, same duo/trio villain ,worthless composition and dumb presentation. The dumb villains don't even evoke laughter. Even the traps are same as the last movies. They were triggered a bit differently, but definitely not in favor of making it better. I was a home alone fan. I tried to watch it completely unbiased. SO I did not read any review or checked the rating. It seems, had I checked the rating and refrain from watching it, it would have saved me from wasting my time.I am so disappointed that I had to write this review to warn other fans. Try not to watch it. It will just break the spell altogether.