Home Alone | Home Alone 2: Lost in New York | Home Alone 3 | Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House | Home Alone: The Holiday Heist | Home Sweet Home Alone
- Designated Hero: Max. His actions in the movie appear to be sadistic as he brutally hurts the two Designated Villain thieves (who just wanted their doll back). He also acts snobbish due to his family's way of life, and is generally insufferable, with the worst of his Jerkassery being stealing gifts from children in need, even quipping "Well, I'm definitely a child in need!" before he returns to his bonafide mansion. At the end of the movie, he doesn't seem to make up for this, and stays as this archetype.
- Designated Villain: The "villains" are just a desperate couple trying to retrieve their stolen property so they can afford to keep their house. It's actually painful watching them be tortured by the spoiled brat who stole from them.
- Fan Nickname: Home Alone 6, among fans who prefer the sequential numbering of the Home Alone movies.
- Fourth Wall Myopia: The sheer amounts of Poor Communication Kills ends up making the McKenzie family seem like a bunch of idiots, even for the standards of a series that relies on Idiot Plots. While some of Max's antics can be seen as one big Kick the Dog after Kick the Dog, he's actually well within his rights to assume the home invaders are here for him — we the viewers know that the McKenzies aren't there for him, but he only hears them say that they want to take "him" and sell "him" (the doll) to some old lady, and from his point of view, a pair of human traffickers understandably deserve what he inflicts on them. This is also arguably done backwards with how we don't know that he never actually took the doll, which made their attempts meaningless.
- One-Scene Wonder: Buzz's cameo is widely considered the high point of the film, particularly when he hilariously recaps the first two films to his colleagues and explains how Kevin prank calls the police every year just to mess with him.
- Overshadowed by Controversy: While Devin Ratray's return as Buzz may have been welcomed by fans, it would soon be tainted by a report that Ratray assaulted his girlfriend shortly after the release of the film and later an accusation of rape by a long-time friend of his.
- Rooting for the Empire: Jeff and Pam, a financially down-on-their-luck couple who are trying to reclaim a stolen doll that was rightfully theirs, and go through their abuse thanks to a series of misunderstandings. It doesn't help that Jeff also takes a lot of unwarranted abuse and insults from people before he ever even sets foot on the Mercer household.
- Sequelitis: Some fans consider it to be even worse than Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House. The major problem is the botched characterizations, making viewers dislike the protagonist and find the antagonists not deserving of their suffering.
- Special Effect Failure: In the dinner scene at the end of the movie, the background is very obviously greenscreened.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Kevin being The Ghost, as him experiencing the trauma and how he's living his life as a security company owner would have been a great watch.
- The same also counts for several main characters from the first two films, such as Kate Mcallister, and Harry and Marv, since only Buzz was brought back. Peter’s actor John Heard died in 2017, sadly, so there would’ve been one of two options anyway - recast the part or kill him off altogether.
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Jeff and Pam are this in that they're set up as Anti-Villains, as their motivation isn't to rob Max's house or harm him; it's to obtain a doll that was rightfully theirs so they could provide for their family. However, because they're given such a sympathetic background and motive, this makes the "Home Alone" Antics that Max inflicts on them come across as very mean-spirited to viewers instead of funny. Not only that, but they even end up acting as better parental figures than Max's actual parents. Because of this, and Max being an Designated Hero, many even consider them the true protagonists.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: This is a MAJOR criticism of the movie.
- Archie Yates portrays Max as a very snobby child who doesn't come off as being bullied or neglected by his family. The pain he inflicts on the home invaders actually feels less deserved (thanks to what we know about them, but he doesn't), and he seems almost too Easily Forgiven, considering the "Home Alone" Antics he subjected the McKenzies to could have easily landed them in the hospital if not left with permanent injuries. There's even a scene where, at a church toy drive, Max is even given a toy gun from someone less fortunate than him. He's only really at his best in the penultimate scene, where he tells Jeff and Pam's children not to take their family for granted and then saves the valuable doll, rather than having more time to showcase his Hidden Heart of Gold the way the previous protagonists did.
- Max's family as well, especially his father. While his mother does attempt to get back to her son, the rest of the family doesn't seem the least bit phased. Even in the first two movies, the rest of the family is visibly shaken by Kevin's absence.
- The issue of calling the police to perform a welfare check on the kid home alone actually is brought up — except Buzz writes it off as a prank phone call because it's a running gag that his brother calls him and pretends to have been left behind on Christmas. Except this time, it's not Kevin calling about it — it's someone completely different. So why would anyone assume that this is just another "wolf" cry? This makes Buzz seem like he hasn't grown out of his Jerkass behavior and is quite an incompetent officer.note
