Home Alone 3 Doesn't Get the Respect It Deserves

'tis the season for binging for whatever Christmas films you can get your hands on. As the snow starts to fall and Santa readies his sleigh, families around the world will gather around their televisions to partake in watching some delightful holiday films. More often than not, most would consider Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York required viewing for the season. What most forget to point out, however, is the existence of Home Alone 3—arguably the most under-rated film in the franchise.

Seriously, though. It's time we give the threequel the respective it deserves.

While the first two entries follow Culkin's Kevin McCallister, Home Alone 3 pivots to the Pruitts, a new family just a tad smaller than the McCallister clan. Despite keeping the story in Chicago, the McCallisters aren't mentioned nor are any Easter eggs included. Instead, Alex Linz's Alex Pruitt takes center stage in one of the most bombastic home invasion stories ever told.

The Wet/Sticky Bandits proved to be formidable foes over the course of the first two films, but they were no real Big Bads. Home Alone 3 pays tribute to the plots of the first two movies by keeping its story a home invasion scavenger hunt; only here, they introduce a team of criminals working for a terrorist organization as the antagonists, instead of two petty thieves taken off the street. The stakes are higher in Home Alone 3, meaning Pruitt's booby traps have to be much more outlandish than those of McCallister's, and that's where the movie comes out swinging.

Maybe it's the part where watchers are led to believe an eight-year-old hoisted a trunk full of books up to his roof, or the fact he drives a tractor while hauling around a trampoline around his yard, only to bust out the tools and reposition a diving board halfway across the yard. Then there's the part where terrorists manage to stop the entire traffic of a subdivision by removing its street sign, seemingly causing people across Chicago to forget that one particular road was wiped off the map.

More importantly, however, is the Christmas spirit embodied in the feature—a spirit that perfectly depicts the parts of a wildly imaginative childhood that made growing up so great.  Home Alone 3 has long lived in the shadows of its predecessors but this holiday season, let's give it the respect it deserves and add it to the Christmas time binge list.

Home Alone 3, as well as the other films in the franchise, are now streaming on Disney+.

What's your favorite Christmas movie? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!