Home Alone 3 MPAA Rating: PG Entertainment: +3 Content: -1/2

In this third film of the "Home Alone" series, eight year old Alex Pruitt (Alex Linz) again fights off a group of bad guys trying to invade his house. In this case, its a group of four representatives of a terrorist organization who must retrieve a missile chip stored in a toy auto which is given to Alex. Since he can't get anyone to believe that these crooks are in his neighborhood, he sets up an array of traps to batter them when they try to break into his house. And they do make an all out hi-tech assault on his home one day when he's home alone with the chicken pox. But they find themselves pounded, beaten, dunked, and abused in all sorts of supposedly comical ways. Alex himself uses an assortment of high tech gadgets to spy on the crooks, sends out the toy auto to harass them, and remotely turns on TV's and phone messages to distract them. Almost all the humor in the film is provided by the physical abuse of the crooks and the kids in the screening audience seemed to really go for it. So, another HOME ALONE film seems to be on its way to box office stardom.

The amount of abuse which the crooks are subjected to is truly amazing and often appalling. Various members of the group have their heads hit together and are hit on the head by heavy falling objects such as a large trunk and metal bar bells. Various ones are shocked with electricity, slammed into walls and doors, and crash through two stories of the house to land in the basement. The most offensive abuse, though, is a scene where a woman strikes a man very forcefully in the genitals with a heavy object. This continuous comical violence is definitely excessive and is a classic case of exploiting violence to entertain. The film is softened somewhat by the loving way that Alex's parents (Haviland Morris and Kevin Kilner) care for him and the friendship which Alex develops with an elderly lady neighbor. Three moderately crude words are spoken, and some comical remarks are made about male genitals and nudity. These might be tolerated, but the degree of violence in the film, particularly the blow to a man's genitals, is simply too much.

Preview Reviewer: John Evans
Distributor: 20th Century Fox, 10201 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035