Reviews

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, the kid didn't strike me as very interesting - no charisma to speak of, no charm or anything I could really grab onto that would make me want to see more. Still, I assumed when I watched the full movie, more of his character would come through because how could it not? "Oh, now I get what the filmmakers saw in him" I'd no doubt be saying. Well, whatever it was never made it on screen. It seems that the people behind this movie accidentally thought that turning the formula on its head would make up for the lack of originality inherent in doing a reboot - that is, they made the criminals the protagonists. Consequently, there's more attention given to the burglers and making them sympathetic and the kid is more one-dimensional and there just to fulfill the minimum requirement of the premise and set some house traps. There aren't really many scenes devoted to get to know him or get a sense of his perspective on the world, so there's nothing that makes you root for him.

There are also a number of things that just seem to fill time and don't really go anywhere. The kid wanted some McDonalds early on in the movie and was denied, so you might figure when he's on his own, there will be a shot in the montage where he's eating some McDonalds or maybe a scene where he ventures out and has an amusing exchange with a McDonalds cashier or Doordash driver. Nope. Nothing. Granted, those wouldn't be great jokes or anything, but this movie is too stupid to even attempt paying off its own dumb setups. Then there was something about a teenage girl (the burgler couple's daughter I think) getting some expensive dress that showed a lot of shoulder. So you'd think maybe she'll get some kind of arc and learn something about being materialistic or trying to impress people. No. She just kind of wears it to a performance and then nothing at all happens. Why they heck did you even show me anything about this dress in the first place? Everything just fizzles out and goes nowhere.

Back to characters though. Much of the humor in the original two movies was derived from characters. For instance, Uncle Frank trying to get his wife to steal the silverware on their flight. It's funny because you understand what kind of guy that is and how such a CHARACTER behaves in different situations. In this new one, all of the extended family are just quippy interchangeable nobodies with no discernible personalities or characterstics to speak of - apart from maybe you get the sense they were raised on sitcoms. I didn't look up who wrote this but it seems like it was probably a team of writers impressed with their own cleverness and they just switched over from twitter dot com to their screenwriting app for a few minutes and couldn't be bothered to switch up the style. There's room for a character like that, but having so much of the movie's jokes coming from self-impressed smug people trying to be funny instead of characters who are normal people reacting to crazy situations in funny ways really hurts this type of movie. The whole lot them cancel each other out and they become forgettable and tiresome.

Along those same lines, there's a weird thing movies do nowadays where they have to draw attention to jokes and have the characters narrate to you in case you are too stupid to get it. Yes I understand that when your feet are on fire and then you are walking in the snow it is hot and then cold. I've seen fire and snow before. I know what happens there. Are you trying to think of how you'll phrase it on social media later or something? Film is a pretty visual medium and there's a lot to be said for showing rather than telling. Trust the audience a little more.

I liked watching Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci get beat up more than I like seeing Ellie Kemper get beat up though. I'm more indifferent to Rob Delaney but these new people never threatened a kid and were made to be sympathetic, so the big payoff at the end is just not nearly as satisfying. Another thing on that note, I don't know what it was about these traps that made them forgettable but maybe part of it was you weren't really seeing bad guys get their comeuppance. It just felt sort of paint-by-numbers and uninspired.

There was a scene where Ellie Kemper and Rob Delaney are arguing while performing music for some senior citizens. It was meant to be funny but it was just grating. And it just kept going. This goes for most comedy "writing" nowadays, but this seemingly-half-improvised, naturalistic overlapping dialogue stuff doesn't count as a joke. It isn't funny. Why do they keep doing it? It was kind of interesting once or twice fifteen years ago but now it just seems lazy - as if the things they are saying don't need to bother being funny, they just need to have enough syllables to fit the dialogue pattern rhythms.

I probably missed something but how the heck did the mom know where to find the kid at the end? He couldn't have left a note because she didn't go home first. That was weird but maybe they explained that when I was out of the room.

I guess that's all. It wasn't the worst thing of all time, I mean I did sit through the whole thing. But it's a contender for the most useless.