Leaning hard on the sensitive-brat charm of the eleven-year-old Macaulay Culkin, they duplicate and exaggerate every laugh-getting, tearjerking separation and reunion, every crowd-pleasing gibe and gambit.

NEWYORKER: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

The screenplay, by Seth Bass and Jonathan Tolins, based on a novel by David Gerrold, offers heartwarming, tearjerking, stand-up-and-cheer moments that only a golem could resist, but Meyjes never conjures a world, inner or outer, so the result is just a string of effective scenes, an illustrated script rather than an experience.

NEWYORKER: Martian Child