Bone - allein zu haus

I honestly want to rate this lower. I think this film is poor in many ways. But I do remember when I was younger thoroughly enjoying it. It would be too bad to stick your kid in front off and let them have a mediocre time.

This era of "CGI talking animated animals" does strike a cord with me as I liked watching these film when I was younger (like 10 or so), so I am slightly biased here. But I feel that's more so the point, it's targeted towards kids who don't need to have the same level of quality adults do in order to enjoy themselves and emerse themselves into a piece of fiction.

Any kid who likes animals would probably like it. I still think it's bad though, even now. So 5/10.

Trees with leaves in Wisconsin on Christmas Eve? LOL! Enough said! Bone is adorable, though.

This movie is by no means a good movie. Most of the movie consists of weak dialogue, cheap cinematics and poor acting. Read until the end of the review if you're hesitant to watch.

Luckily, the last half of the movie has a lot of hilarious scenes. Similar to the Home Alone movies. All these scenes are super cheap and weird, but with the right mindset it can be hilarious. Some of them had the family rolling in laughter.

I would happily rewatch the last half for its stupidity and laughter. But the rest is not very entertaining.

For anyone who wants to skip the first half, here's a summary of what happens:

A family is going to their grandma during christmas.

They have 2 dogs, one of which is wrongfully blamed for ruining the house, and is therefore sent to the kennel during christmas.

Both dogs realize that their home is about to be broken into, so they both try to find their way home to stop the burglars.

One dog sets up traps, and the other dog finds a ride home.

The last half is similar to Home Alone, and is pretty much the only thing worth seeing.

This movie legitimately was so bad. If you like Home Alone, just watch that movie and don't waste your energy trying to entertain yourself with this rip-off. It's very cliche and predictable. If you like the plot summary, please just watch Home Alone. I genuinely cannot stress this enough, but this movie is terrible. Not even your toddler-aged kids will like it. The acting is alright but felt awkward at times, and the plot stops making sense at some times. The cinematics are awful and will leave you questioning your sanity. The animation on the dogs like 'talking' were horrible, it looked like they were having a seizure. The animators definitely have potential, maybe the budget was just low? Either way, seriously, choose a different movie if you love dogs.

Comparing briefly what Bone Alone was reminiscent of, it is not as good as the first two Home Alone films or the first Look Who's Talking but is on the same level as Look Who's Talking Too and Home Alone 3 and is better than Home Alone 4(almost anything is in all fairness) and Look Who's Talking Now. I disagree with the first two reviewers, Bone Alone to me wasn't great but it also wasn't that terrible, if anything it was a mixed bag with some good and some bad.

Good: For a low budget movie, Bone Alone does look surprisingly decent, the scenery is very nice and colourful and the camera work is better than most low-budget movies, not entirely smooth but far from choppy. The soundtrack is bright and breezy, there are some well-engineered if in some cases somewhat familiar slapstick traps, there are some refreshing twists in others, and some effects are alright. The acting is mixed but much more watchable than expected to be, Kevin Sorbo gives the best performance with the best comic timing of the movie. David DeLuise is both sympathetic and amusing. Oh and the dog Bone is just adorable, with Bill Pomeroy doing a competent job as the voice of Bone. Bone Alone is a short movie and whizzes by though with some lulls in the middle.

Bad: The comic timing is very off in places, too over-earnest and forced. Kim Little, who usually isn't so bad an actress, is disappointingly erratic as the mother and Davis Cleveland is very annoying, if not quite as unwatchably obnoxious like he is on Shake It Up(one of the Disney Channel's worst shows). Not all the effects are particularly good too, some in the trap settings and executions are very slapdash. In regard to the comic timing too, that the dialogue is very corny and awkward does them no favours and the characters you never do engage with, the criminals being among the dumbest committed to movie celluloid. The story being predictable is to be expected but a few scenes in the middle feel drawn out and it is never plausible that Bone can fool the criminals in the way he did. The whole movie is lacking in heart and can feel harmless, also for a movie supposedly set at Christmas there is not much of a sense of the festive spirit.

All in all, could have been better could have been worse. Mildly watchable family entertainment on the whole. 5/10 Bethany Cox