Film / Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

aka: Home Alone 2

"It's Christmas Eve, and because of you, our child is lost in one of the biggest cities in the world."

"You can mess with a lot of things, but you can't mess with kids on Christmas."

— Kevin McCallister

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is a 1992 American Christmas family comedy film. It is the sequel to Home Alone and the second installment in the Home Alone film series, directed by Chris Columbus, written and produced by John Hughes, and scored by John Williams, all of whom returned from the first film.

The film is mainly a rehash of the original, only this time it's set in New York City, with Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) taking the wrong plane instead of being forgotten at home when his big family flies out of Chicago for the Christmas holidays once again. Meanwhile, the Wet Bandits, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), have escaped from prison and travelled to the Big Apple; they have a new name (the Sticky Bandits, after a gimmick Marv creates of pasting double-sided tape on his gloves so that money will stick to them) and a new mission: robbing toy stores during Christmas. Naturally, they cross paths with Kevin again...

The film received video game adaptations for the Sega Genesis and SNES/NES.

Followed by Home Alone 3, for which none of the actors and characters from the first two films returned.

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Home Alone 2: Lost in New York contains examples of:

#-D

• 555:
  • It's brief, but when Kevin looks up Uncle Rob's address, his phone number in the book has 555 in it. There's also a dumpster near his house with a 555 number.
  • Averted with the phone number Kevin calls to reach the Plaza Hotel: 1-800-759-3000. However, the Plaza's real area code is 212, rather than being a toll free 800 number.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • When Kevin tells his parents that Uncle Frank told him that if Kevin saw him in the shower, he'd "grow up never feeling like a real man", Peter chuckles and immediately clams up when Kate shoots him a disapproving look.
  • Kevin tells the Pigeon Lady that if she wants to meet other people, she should not wear something covered in pigeon poop. The lady laughs and says, "I have been working very hard at keeping people away, haven't I?"
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • Marv apparently learned nothing from the first movie.
    Marv: What can he do? He's a kid. Kids are helpless.
  • Kevin's parents didn't learn either. They try to be Genre Savvy a few times, but they didn't learn the most important lesson: to hold onto Kevin's hand like a vice until they see him sitting in a plane seat.
  • Neither did they learn to set several alarm clocks, at least one of which should not depend on mains power.
  • When Kate confronts Kevin in the attic after the choir debacle, she uses the exact same passive-aggressiveness that she did with Kevin in the first film, even knowing how well that had worked out before.
  • Double Subverted with Kevin, since he says he wants to be on his own again (partly because he was still mad at Buzz and partly because didn't want to spend his Christmas in Miami), but later attempts to find his family when he gets separated at the airport, and even acknowledges that the whole ordeal from the first film nearly wrecked his Christmas. However, he later enjoys how he is far away from his family, and eventually has to learn all over again that being on his own, with his family nowhere to be found, isn't all fun and games like it seems to be at first. At the end, he is, just like in the first film, desperately wishing for a chance to be with his family again.
• The Alleged Car: The car Harry lands on top of, which smashes into a million pieces as if Harry was a five-ton statue.
• The Alleged House: Uncle Rob is having his townhouse renovated, so it's a complete mess inside (floors torn up, walls stripped down to the studs, and so on). This works out in Kevin's favor since he's able to use the building's problems and construction supplies in his traps.
• All There in the Script: The first draft of the script gives the Pigeon Lady a name: Annie.
• Analogy Backfire: Subverted. After Annie the Pigeon Lady tells Kevin her backstory about how her heart was broken and drove her to push people away, Kevin shares a story about a pair of roller skates he got once. He was afraid they would get damaged and only rolled around them in his room so rarely, before he outgrew them with nothing to show for it. Annie gently points out that a pair of skates isn't exactly comparable to a person's heart. To this, Kevin justifies that he compares the two because the takeaway is that, just like roller skates, a human heart isn't meant to lock away in a box forever. Otherwise, there's no use in having it.
• Answer Cut: After Peter wonders whether Kevin would know enough to see if his brother Rob was in town since he had a home in New York City, and in the next scene, Kevin is indeed at his uncle's house. Also, In a later scene Marv wonders why anyone would soak a rope in kerosene. Cut to Kevin lighting a match.
• Apathetic Citizens: Hardly anyone reacts to Harry and Marv chasing Kevin through the streets during the day, or at night.
  • The infamous Christmas pageant scene, depending on the perspective. Buzz humiliates Kevin, unbeknownst to Kevin, causing almost the entire audience (save for Kate, Peter, Aunt Leslie, the pianist, and the conductor, and maybe a few others) to erupt in laughter. It could be arguable why they could be doing this, either they think Buzz is just doing something funny and it is coming off as a harmless prank, or are personally demeaning Kevin, most likely the former, but either way, it seems pretty sadistic that this would occur in a school performance let alone to a kid. Apparently, everyone was just too polite to violate the (ostensibly) formal atmosphere of the Christmas pageant, but to be fair, it was hilarious nonetheless, and it probably came off much harsher than it actually was, we are seeing it from his perspective after all. Kevin quickly shut everyone up though after he noticed Buzz was the one inciting the laughter and shoved him causing Buzz and all the other choir members, the Christmas set, and the pianist to all fall over.
• Artifact Title: While he is alone in this film, Kevin's not home, so the franchise's title doesn't quite apply.
• Artistic License – Geography: The film has several instances of this, as detailed in this article:
  • When Kevin arrives in New York, at LaGuardia Airport, he looks out the terminal's window and sees the Midtown Manhattan skyline for the first time. While the direction is accurate (facing west from LaGuardia across the East River to Manhattan), the film makes Manhattan appear to be much closer to LaGuardia than it actually is (in reality, the airport's Central Terminal is about 5 miles from Midtown as the crow flies).
  • Shortly after Kevin arrives in New York City, the film presents a montage of his sightseeing adventures that attempts to cram in every interesting location in Manhattan. Kevin is seen taking a picture outside of Radio City Music Hall, which is in Midtown Manhattan, and then at the Empire Diner in Chelsea. Next, he is shopping in Chinatown (which is in Lower Manhattan), and then looking at the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park, which is all the way on the southernmost part of the island, and heading up to the World Trade Center's observation deck. Then, he visits Central Park (back near Midtown), and finally arrives at the Plaza Hotel. And Kevin somehow manages to do all of this in just a couple of hours.
  • Duncan's Toy Chest is a stand-in for the real life F.A.O. Schwarz toy store. While the exact location of Duncan's isn't specified, at the time of the film, F.A.O. Schwartz was located directly across the street from The Plaza hotel on 59th Street. Unless Kevin was doing some sightseeing, he wouldn't need a limo to go there.
  • The bandits chase Kevin from Duncan's (presumably on 59th Street, or somewhere nearby in Midtown) to his uncle's house on West 95th street on the Upper West Side. The distance between F.A.O. Schwartz and his uncle's address is about 2.5 miles in real life.
  • Initially, and at the very end of the film, the Pigeon Lady is shown roaming around the southern end of Central Park (near West 59th Street), which is close to the Plaza Hotel and Carnegie Hall (on West 57th Street), where she is shown to live. However, at the climax of the film, when Kevin flees from from his uncle's house on West 95th Street, he runs inside the park and ends up at the Inscope Arch (which is in real life located on East 62nd Street, on the east side of the park and a few miles away from West 95th St), and the Pigeon Lady happens to be there to save him from Harry and Marv. After they are subdued, Kevin seemingly walks from West 95th Street down to the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center, a distance of almost 3 miles.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Prior to apprehending Harry and Marv, one of the cops fires his gun in the air to scare away the pigeons. A real cop (hopefully) wouldn't do this, that bullet is going to come down somewhere in the vicinity and would potentially be fatal.
• Ash Face: After Harry soaks his burning head in a toilet full of paint thinner, the entire first floor of the house blows up, but luckily Harry survives with only a burn on his scalp and a damaged hat and ash on his face.
• Aside Glance:
  • Upon finding out that he's in New York, he repeats this to the audience and then grins.
  • Also, when the passenger next to him on the plane starts speaking French.
  • Kevin's parents give one after finding out they overslept again.
• Bannister Slide: Kevin goes down the emergency exit stairs to the Plaza this way.
• Behind the Black: Marvin becomes very susceptible to this, missing both a ten-foot hole that should be illuminated from Christmas and street lights coming through the door and an equally large bright-green area of slippery goo, even though he can see a rope hanging across the room...^note Of course, he has suffered multiple head injuries only a few minutes before (and not for the first time)
• "Be Quiet!" Nudge: How Aunt Leslie tries, and fails, to stop Uncle Frank from laughing during the Christmas pageant.
• Big Applesauce: One of the more glamourous depictions of New York City after roughly thirty years of getting The Big Rotten Apple treatment from Hollywood.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Mr. Hector poses a rather significant threat to Kevin, but it's Harry and Marv who serve as the primary villains.
• Big Damn Heroes: The pigeon lady has Marv and Harry let Kevin go just as they are about to kill him.
• Big "NEVER!": Marv, although in a context that just makes him look foolish.
  Kevin: You guys give up? Have you had enough pain?
  Marv: Nevah!
  Harry: (shakes head at Marv)
• Big "NO!":
  • Harry screams one while Kevin throws a rock through a window to trip the toy store alarm, and expose the Bandits.
  • Kevin earlier in the movie when he realizes he's leaping right into Harry's hands, complete with a good shot at the burn from the doorknob.
• Big "OMG!": One of the police officers when he sees the pigeons attacking Harry and Marv to the point where he fires his gun to scare them off.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Harry keeps yelling at Marv to shut up when he keeps blabbing to the cops.
  Marv: He made us hide out in the store so we could steal all the kids' charity money.
  Harry: (elbows Marv) Shut up, Marv! We have the right to remain silent, you know!
  Marv: He's a little cranky. We just broke out of prison a few days ago.
  Harry: (elbows Marv again) SHUT UP, MARV! Geez!
• Big "WHAT?!": Peter upon finding out that Kevin's not with the family in Miami.
• Big "YES!": Marv gives a short, triumphant one when he takes a bunch of stuff from the renovation townhouse basement and stacks it together to make a object he can climb on to get out of the basement.
• Bilingual Bonus: The French tourist sitting next to Kevin on the flight to New York. His response to Kevin's question is "What's that? I'm from France and I'm a tourist here, it's my first time coming to America. Do you know a good restaurant? Or maybe your parents, they know a good place? Why aren't you responding? You speak a bit of French right? I don't speak English at all, give me a bit of help at least. My name is Andre, what's your name?"
• Bitch Slap: Kate, already thoroughly pissed that Mr. Hector and his staff literally chased her 10-old son out onto the mean streets of New York, smacks Hector across the face when he attempts to advise her against looking for Kevin alone on said streets.
• Bond One-Liner: "Merry Christmas, you filthy animal! *shoots some more* And a Happy New Year! *BANG!*"
• Bowdlerise:
  • Channels like ABC Family and Cartoon Network seem to love editing out certain parts of the final act.
  • Marv getting hit on the head with four bricks, for example, was cut down to only one.
  • The aforementioned Angrish Harry mutters whenever Kevin injures him.
• Brand X: Duncan's Toy Chest is very obviously meant to be FAO Schwarz, a real-life massive toy store in exactly the same location^note what we see in the movie is actually the exterior of the Rookery Building, with interiors from the Uptown Theater, both in Chicago.
• Brick Joke:
  • Kevin uses Peter's credit card to check into the Plaza Hotel, where he enjoys the room service. After Kevin escapes the concierge having called the credit card 'stolen', the movie continues on with Kevin befriending the pigeon lady and his family is given a complimentary suite once they arrive in New York. At the end of the film, Kevin gives the pigeon lady one of the turtle doves he got at Duncan's Toy Chest (because friendship is valuable), Buzz gets something from the bellhop that is also high in price: Kevin's room service bill. Kevin then hears Peter yell out "KEVIN!! YOU SPENT $967 ON ROOM SERVICE?!!!!!?"
  • Right before the goons are set to invade the trap-infested house that Kevin has set up, Kevin throws several bricks down at the pair, with all of them hitting Marv. After the pair have made it through the gauntlet to the top of the house, with Kevin now on the sidewalk, Marv attempts to get revenge on him by tossing a brick at him.
  • In the first movie, Kevin recounts to Marley how a friend of his got beaten up for wearing dinosaur pajamas. Guess what kind of pajamas Fuller is wearing during the finale?
  • The gangster movie Kevin watches mentions Cliff as one of the men Johnny's girlfriend hangs out with. When Kevin uses the movie to scare the Plaza hotel staff, one of the security guards happens to be named Cliff. Even better, Kevin pauses the movie right after Johnny says his name so the staff can react.
• Bumbling Sidekick: Marv is this to Harry and Cedric the bellboy is this to Mr. Hector, the concierge.
• Butt-Monkey: The sequel also has the hotel staff (though to a much lesser extent than Harry and Marv, obviously).
• Call-Back:
  • In the first film, Marv agrees with Harry's plan to attack at night saying "kids are scared of the dark." Here, it's "kids are scared of the Park." (Central Park, specifically.)
  • The scene where Kevin records his Uncle Frank taking a shower was meant to be a call back to this creepy deleted scene from the first film.
  • In the first film, Marv points out that some of Harry's teeth got knocked out. In this one, he says, "Hey! You didn't lose any teeth."
  • When the Wet Bandits catch Kevin escaping the hotel, Harry's palm still has the "M" logo from the red-hot doorknob trap.
  • Speaking of the red-hot doorknob trap, Harry always makes sure to check each and every doorknob in the trap-infested apartment won't brand his hand.
  • The paint cans on the stairs get a Lampshade Hanging:
    Harry: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't you remember what happened from last year?
    Marv: (Beat) No.
  • Kevin's family are stuck in a motel room watching a Spanish dub of It's a Wonderful Life, just like in the first film when they were stuck watching the French dub of the same movie.
  • Near the end, Kevin slips on ice, allowing the bandits to catch him, and Harry says "how do you like the ice, kid?" This was probably a reference to Kevin's icy staircase trap in the first film.
  • When Harry accidentaly burns his head he screams that "He (Kevin) did it (again) !!" obviously referring to the same thing he happened to him in the first movie.
• Car Cushion: Kevin tricks Harry and Marv into getting onto a makeshift see-saw, launching Harry into the air and onto a car.
• Celebrity Cameo:
  • Donald Trump, the then-owner of the Plaza Hotel, appears in the film as the man who directs Kevin to the lobby.^note According to Matt Damon, this is because Trump always demands a cameo from anyone who wants to film in one of his buildings. Oddly enough, the directions he gives Kevin are incorrect.
  • Frank Oz is briefly seen after the moment Marv steals coins from a Santa Claus red donation can (and says to Harry they are now the "Sticky Bandits").
  • Ally Sheedy as the airport clerk who tells Kevin he's in New York.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The film is still pretty light in the first half, up until Harry and Marv finally discover Kevin is in New York with them and his credit card fraud is exposed, thus forcing Kevin to flee from the hotel and be on the run from his two old enemies. After that the Darker and Edgier aspects start becoming much more noticeable.
• Character Development: Kevin in the first movie was a bit cool when his mother returned, having figured out that they went to Paris without him. When they reunite here, Kevin is the first to apologize, for everything. Kate's smile and apology in turn signals that she appreciates it, even though she's relieved Kevin isn't hurt and that he didn't need to say sorry. 
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Kevin watching a gangster movie again. This time, he uses it to scare off the hotel staff. It actually works!
• Chekhov's Gag: It's established that Kevin's cousin Fuller is a notorious bed-wetter, and thus, no one wants to share a bed with him. Toward the end, Kevin and most of the other McCallisters (besides Kevin's parents, who have a separate room) are seen sleeping squashed together everywhere other than the bed. Guess who's got that huge bed all to himself (with Coke cans all over it, no less)?
• Chekhov's Gun
  • The inflatable Bozo the Clown. It’s given to Kevin at the start of the film as a gift from his grandmother, then he uses it in the hotel to fool the concierge that there’s someone in the shower.
  • "Angels With Even Filthier Souls." Kevin watches it before the concierge shows up at his room, then he uses it to scare off the hotel staff before he flees.
  • The fireworks Kevin buys in Chinatown. He sets them off in Central Park at the end to alert to police as to where Harry and Marv are.
  • The "Monster Soap" Kevin buys at the toy store. He uses it for two of the traps in Uncle Rob's house (smearing it on a ladder and dumping it on the basement floor).
  • The birds in the park. The bird lady sics them on Harry and Marv before the police show up to arrest them.
  • Most (if not all) of the stuff Kevin records on his Talkboy ends up being used later.
  • The conspicuously-shown Plaza Hotel commercial that Kevin watches. When he ends up in New York, he winds up getting a room there.
  • The varnish which falls on the crooks and causes birdseed to stick to them and jams Harry's gun, preventing him from shooting Kevin and the pigeon lady.
  • Uncle Rob's house. Early on, he notes that Uncle Rob lives in New York and decides to drop in, but the house is empty because it’s undergoing renovation. It’s where Kevin sets his traps later.
  • Kevin's love of Christmas trees. It's how Kate knows where to find him at the end.
  • Peter's credit card, which helped the police find Kevin when it was used.
• Chekhov's Gunman
  • The blonde woman that Marv keeps trying to flirt with. She later saves Kevin by punching out the bandits when it was Kevin who actually touched her.
  • The pigeon lady. At first Kevin sees her as some "sick" creep (before later befriending her), but she later saves him from the bandits' attempt on his life.
• Comically Missing the Point: Kevin takes a Polaroid of the crooks as they're robbing the toy store. Harry shouts "He took our picture!", and Marv replies, "How's my hair look?"
• Contrasting Sequel Setting: Whereas the first film was largely set in the Chicago suburbs, the sequel takes place in New York City.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • The movie lines up a row of contrivance dominoes to make its plot happen:
    • The family sleeps through their alarms again and once more have no time to spare to make their flight on time
    • When Kate is handing out the boarding passes to everyone, Megan looks at them and points out that none of the kids or parents are seated together. Kate explains that it was the only way the family could get the same flight, but as a result Kevin and everyone else fails to realize they're not together on the plane.
    • When they arrive at the airport, Kevin insists on batteries for his Talkboy now as they check their bags and head for the gate, rather than waiting until he's aboard the plane. This also gives Kevin the pretense to take his dad's bag unprompted, which contains Peter's wallet with the money and resources to keep Kevin afloat in New York.
    • None of the adults trail the kids as they run through the airport to make sure they're accounted for, making it easy for Kevin to go astray unnoticed.
    • A man with a similar appearance and attire to Peter just so happens to also be dashing for his gate alongside the family, so that Kevin ends up running behind him thinking it's his father.
    • Kevin crashes into the employee gathering the boarding passes and spills them everywhere; the attendant allows him to board so long as he can identify his family (which he points out the stranger, again not facing Kevin so the latter doesn't know it's not his dad), whereas a simple boarding pass check would've shown Kevin would be on the wrong flight.
    • While Kate tries to check to make sure the kids are all aboard the plane before takeoff to avoid a repeat of the previous year, the flight staff forces her to board the plane and sit down in her seat before she can finish or notice Kevin had gone astray because they're too close to the takeoff time. Kate even has a Gut Feeling something is amiss as she did in the first movie, but shrugs it off after Peter suggests it's likely just anxiety over what happened last time.
    • The passenger next to Kevin on his flight is a chatty foreigner, so he drowns him out by cranking up his Talkboy headphones. As a result, Kevin cannot hear the flight attendant announce the plane is headed for New York.
    • The Plaza clerk also allows Kevin to check into "Peter McCallister"'s suite with a credit card without checking identification or if the card was stolen or any other possibilities that could come up with a 10-year-old trying to check into a hotel unsupervised.
  • Not only do Harry and Marv just so happen to be in New York at the same time as Kevin, they just so happen to run into him on the street, multiple times. And Kevin just so happens to befriend the owner of the very same toy store that Harry and Marv plan to rob.
  • After running around Manhattan all night looking for Kevin, Kate is able to intuit he's at Rockefeller Center's Christmas tree at that precise moment and sure enough, he's there.
• Crazy Homeless People:
  • Kevin comes across one walking through Manhattan at night, telling him "Watch it, kid!" and then laughing maniacally.
  • Averted with the Pigeon Lady whom Kevin befriends after she turns out to be not so scary after all.
• Creator Cameo: Chris Columbus himself makes an uncredited cameo holding his daughter Eleanor in the Toy Store.
• Darker and Edgier: Compared to the first movie, this one is much darker and more serious.
  • Kevin's traps are noticeably more brutal and sadistic, albeit still played for Amusing Injuries.
  • Harry and Marv plan to rob a gigantic toy store instead of homes. Along with that, they plan to steal charity money rather than the contents of someone's house. Made worse when Kevin visits the children's hospital where the money is supposed to be donated, and he exchanges waves with a patient in a window.
  • This time, Harry has a gun and tries to use it on Kevin when they have him cornered in Central Park. Even before he does, he says doing so won't mean much to him.
  • At one point, Kevin ends up wandering the streets of New York alone at night, where he encounters some creepy adults, including two trashy women who mockingly offer to "read him a bedtime story", a homeless man who yells and laughs at him and a scary-looking cab driver. At least Kevin always had his warm and (relatively) safe house in the first movie.
  • In the first movie, while Kevin was left home alone, his family at least knew exactly where he was. Here, Kevin actually gets to the airport with his family. It's not until they're collect their baggage in Miami that they realise he's missing and, after the police confirm he's not in Chicago, they can only sit around and wait for them to find his location, and the very real danger is presented of Kevin becoming hopelessly lost in a huge and potentially dangerous city. No wonder Kate fainted this time.
• Credit Card Plot: Kevin uses Peter's credit card while on his own. In the end, it's revealed that he spent almost $1,000 on room service alone.
• Delayed Reaction: Once the rest of the McCallister family touches down at the Miami airport, Peter hands Kevin's bag down the line of relatives to pass on to Kevin. Once it's noticed Kevin isn't there, the bag is passed back up with the message "Kevin's not here." Then once Kate says it...
  Kate: Kevin's not here.
  Peter: (Beat) ... What!?
  Kate: Ah hahahahaha! (Beat) ... KEVIN!!! (Faints)
• Delegation Relay: When the family arrives in Miami, Peter gives Kevin's bag to Kate...and it is relayed all the way down the chain of children, the camera panning and following it the whole time, (except for Buzz (the second time) and Uncle Frank) down to Fuller...who then relays the bag all the way back up the chain to inform them that Kevin's not here.
• Demoted to Extra: The titular house is only featured in the first 10 minutes of the film, and then never seen again. It is the only film in the franchise where the house does not play a significant role.
• Description Cut: Kate tells the Miami police officer she doesn't think Kevin knows how to use a credit card, only for the scene to cut to him using Peter's credit card to check into the Plaza Hotel. Later, upon discovering that Kevin indeed used a credit card at the Plaza Hotel in New York, Peter suggests that maybe Kevin would know to look for his Uncle Rob who has a place in the city, although Kate is hesitant because they're not only out of town, but the place is being renovated. Cue the next scene where Kevin finds the place, but sees it under renovation with no one home.
• Didn't See That Coming: Played With. Harry predicts that Kevin will reuse the paint can trap from the first movie, and he and Marv successfully dodge the attacks. They just don't count on Kevin upgrading the trap with a sewer pipe.
  Marv: Oops.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Peter and Kate receive an icy glare from a security officer when they crack a joke about losing Kevin. Peter tries to explain what he meant, prompting Kate to grab him in an effort to get him to stop.
• Disapproving Look: Uncle Frank (once again) gets glares from other family members (such as some of Kevin's siblings as well as his parents) when he says immature or not the pageant incident was still rather hilarious. The pianist gives the audience patrons this during the laughter, this makes it hard not to feel sorry for her though after she fell over, but it was hilarious to say the least.
• Disaster Dominoes: Kevin's shoving of Buzz in the second movie somehow causes an entire choir to collapse as they grab each other while falling. Everyone but Kevin goes down, including those right in front of him.
• Distinction Without a Difference: The black/white mafia movie that Kevin watches (and includes in the security system) has one of the criminals claim that they're convinced the other character is innocent... except the gun they have isn't convinced and opens fire on them.
  "Alright, I believe ya. But my Tommy Gun don't!"
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In a house full of children, Uncle Frank takes a shower without even shutting (let alone locking) the bathroom door and also implies to Kevin that he has a big penis. And in a creepy deleted scene from the first movie, he plays a prank on Kevin by pulling down his pants, leaving Kevin standing in his underwear. Probably best they left that one out.
• Double Take: Donald Trump directs Kevin to the lobby, goes on about his business, and then pauses to stare after Kevin. Doubles as a Funny Background Event.
• Dramatic Drop: When Harry greets Kevin in front of Duncan's Toy Chest, Kevin drops his pocket knife and map of New York City.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: After Kevin escapes from Harry and Marv, he tells the concierge at the Plaza: "You've gotta help me! There's two guys after me!" The concierge takes it to mean that someone caught onto him using the stolen credit card and seizes the opportunity to hand him over to the authorities, not realizing Harry and Marv are after him.
• Dude, Not Funny!:
  • Kevin says Uncle Frank told him not to go into the bathroom while he's taking a shower, because "he says if I walked in there and saw him naked, I'd grow up never feeling like a real man." Peter laughs at this, but his smile disappears when Kate glares at him.
  • Kevin gets on the wrong plane and his parents find out while checking their baggage. They report to security where Peter jokes that at least they don't lose their luggage. Kate laughs but the head of security answers with a disapproving stare.
• Dumbass Has a Point: At the climax, Marv warns Harry that they should leave when he notices all the pigeons. He proves right when the pigeon lady appears.
• Dutch Angle: A shot of Harry and Marv getting up from the street is shot this way.

E-L

• Evil Laugh: "Watch it, kid! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Kevin does an opposite one.
  "(panicked) Oh no. My family's in Florida and I'm in New York. (calming down) My family's in Florida... and I'm in... New York." (smiles cleverly and waggles his eyebrows as he starts getting cool vacation ideas)
  • His parents, on the other hand, play it straight.
  Kate: (not really paying attention) Kevin's not here.
  Peter: (does a Double Take) What?!
  Kate: (has a good laugh for a bit, and then) KEVIN!!! (faints)
• Failed a Spot Check: This time the family doesn't notice Kevin's missing until they're collecting their baggage.
• Faint in Shock: Kate faints at the airport when she realizes that her entire family has somehow neglected to bring Kevin along on their trip for a second time.
• Family-Friendly Firearms: When Harry tries to shoot the pigeon lady, his gun jams due to the paint and varnish that fell on him after he let go of the burning rope. This was probably the filmmaker's way of reassuring the audience that Harry wouldn't have been able to shoot Kevin even if he tried.
• Flanderization: Harry is a lot meaner and grouchier, and Marv dumber and sillier. Justified for Harry as the two of them just spent nine months in prison due to Kevin's involvement. As for Marv... well, getting hit by an iron on top of being shot in the forehead with a BB rifle will do that to a person.
• Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Weaponized by Kevin as a distraction. When Harry and Marv first arrive in New York City, Marv tries to sweet talk a nearby pretty woman, but she smacks him with her purse. Later, after Kevin escapes from the hotel, Marv and Harry capture him and escort him to a place where they can hide his body, and as they stand at an intersection waiting to cross, Kevin notices they're distracted, so Kevin pinches the butt of a woman in front of him, and it turns out to be the same woman from earlier:
  Marv: (Flirtatious) Well, hello. (Woman knocks him down with a punch)
  Kevin: (Pointing at Harry) He did it!
  Harry: (Confused) Did what!? (Woman knocks him down with a punch)
  Kevin: Thanks! (Woman proudly nods, while Kevin runs off)
• Flyaway Shot: The final shot of Kevin's sightseeing montage in New York starts zoomed in on him taking pictures alone on the observation deck of the World Trade Center, and pulls back to reveal the Manhattan skyline with Central Park behind the towers.
• Fooled by the Sound: Kevin uses a voice-changing toy to make his own voice sound deeper, pretending to be his father when he makes his hotel reservation by telephone, which fools the hotel staff.
• Foreshadowing: While Kate is handing out the plane tickets, Megan notes that none of them will be sitting together. So naturally, when they realise Kevin is missing, no one can say he was with them.
• Friendship Trinket: Kevin gives the Pigeon Lady (whom he had befriended earlier on in the movie, and even saved him from Marv & Harry's clutches) another Turtle Dove Ornament. Said act is rumored that if one person gives a very special person another Turtle Dove, the 2 who have the turtle dove ornaments will always be friends.
• Gave Up Too Soon: Kevin's mother looking for him. If she had stayed outside of Uncle Rob's townhouse for about 5 seconds longer, who knows how Kate would have reacted seeing Kevin getting chased down by Marv and Harry.Or she might have tripped one of Kevin's traps if she had investigated further into his townhouse.
• George Washington Slept Here: Cedric the bellboy tries to impress Kevin with the history of the hotel by telling him Herbert Hoover once slept there. In fact, Kevin doesn't know who Herbert Hoover was and assumes from the name that he was the inventor of the vacuum cleaner but he still seems pretty impressed by that.
• Gilligan Cut:
  • When learning that Kevin has all of Peter's credit cards, Kate expresses that she thinks Kevin doesn't know how to use a credit card. Camera cut to Kevin completing a transaction.
  • Upon discovering that Kevin was in New York, Peter wonders if he'd know enough to seek out his brother Rob, only for Kate to comment "I thought you said they were renovating?". Sure enough, Kevin arrives at Rob's house, which is barren.
• Gratuitous French: Marv attempts to flirt with the blonde woman when they bump into each other the first time by speaking to her in French. She smacks him.
• Gratuitous Spanish: The family (sans Kevin) watching It's a Wonderful Life en Español. Justified as Florida has a considerable Spanish-speaking population.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Like the previous film, Kevin never tells his family about his experiences with Harry and Marv, so they never learn how Kevin stopped the the thieves from stealing the charity money being denoted to the children’s hospital by Mr. Duncan.
• Groin Attack: One of the traps Marv encounters is a fake doorknob with a string attached to it and a staple gun. Marv first gets a staple to the butt, then to the groin, and finally one to the nose.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Harry and Marv during the brief scene where they try to trick Kevin into thinking they've been hit with paint cans (only for them to be hit with an iron pipe for real a moment later).
• Happy Ending Override: While Kevin thanks to the first movie is more independent and self-sufficient—and clearly went through emotional growth too, his family is still quick to think he's a troublemaker who hasn't learned anything when yet another time Buzz harassed him has him being blamed as the instigator and aggressor when really all he was doing was just yet again standing up for himself. While it's in part because Buzz faked remorse and gaslighted the family about regretting making fun of Kevin at the play, it's clear the family should've at least listened to Kevin when he called out Buzz for lying through his teeth rather than not realizing history should've told them what was really going on instead. At the least, there's awareness of making sure Kevin isn't left behind again, even though the circumstances of the situation being what they are at the airport, the outcome was still inevitable.
• Hat Damage: After Harry soaks his burning head in a toilet filled with paint thinner, blowing up the first floor of the house, he winds up with most of his knit cap burned away.
• Have a Gay Old Time: At the beginning when the kids are talking about bringing sunblock on the trip Megan says she doesn't care if she ages like an old suitcase, she's getting toasted. She means she going to get a tan, not get high like the modern use of "toasted" implies.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: Kevin, annoyed by a French passenger next to him, puts on his headphones and cranks the volume, conveniently allowing him to not hear the flight attendant announce that he's on a plane to New York and not the Miami flight his family is on.
• Heartwarming Orphan: One patient waves to Kevin from a window of the children's hospital and Kevin waves back, just before Kevin sets off to foil Harry and Marv's plan. This one's actually the impetus for Kevin going out and opposing this plan to start with, as this is when the pieces fall into place for Kevin and he realizes who Harry and Marv are actually going to be stealing from by robbing Duncan's Toy Chest (and it's not the owner Mr. Duncan). "You can mess with a lot of things, but you can't mess with kids on Christmas."
• Here We Go Again!: Like in the previous movie, Kevin is forced to spend Christmas going up against Marv and Harry.
  Kevin: (takes out messaged brick) This is it. No turning back. Another Christmas in the trenches.
• Heroic Bystander:
  •  Kevin in the first movie was defending his house. Here, he decides to foil Harry and Marv's attempts at robbing Duncan's Toy Chest, knowing that the money was going to charity. To seal the deal, he tosses a brick at the window, with a note apologizing to Mr. Duncan and saying if the store has no insurance and he makes it back to Chicago, then he'll pay for the damage. 
  •  The pigeon lady pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment when she sees two strange men threatening Kevin at gun point. She shouts You Leave Him Alone!, tells Kevin to run, and empties a whole bucket of birdseed on them. Then she and Kevin split before the cops come.
• Homeless Pigeon Person: That homeless pigeon-caretaker woman that Kevin befriends in the second movie.
• Hotel Hellion: Kevin.
• House Squatting: Kevin briefly stays in his uncle Rob's townhouse, which is vacant as he's on vacation in Paris.
• How Many Fingers?: Provides the page quote. After Kevin hits Marv with the first brick, Harry holds up two fingers and a thumb and asks Marv this.
  Marv: Mmmmmmmm eight?
• Hypocritical Humor: Mr. Hector attempts to advise Kate against looking for Kevin alone on the mean streets of New York, in spite of him and his staff having just chased the boy out onto those very streets. Kate righteously smacks him for his idiocy.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: While the rest of McCallister did lose Kevin two years in a row, when they arrive at the Plaza rightfully scold the hotel staff for not only allowing Kevin to check in without an adult, but also scaring him off when they discovered the credit card was "stolen" and threatening to hand him over to the police, leaving him out on the streets of New York City with little food or money.
• I Have Just One Thing to Say: Buzz at the end, who points out that if Kevin hadn't screwed up again, they wouldn't have gotten to spend Christmas at the Plaza Hotel with tons of free gifts from Duncan's Toy Chest. He then decides that Kevin should open the first gift.
• Indignant Slap: When the concierge at the hotel (played by Tim Curry) smugly offers Kevin's mother an Ironic Echo of her own words about her son being lost in a major city after she says she's going out to look for him, she slaps him across the face. Chastened, he says she'll want to take a coat, as it's cold out.
• Informed Judaism: "Merry Christmas, Harry." "Happy Hannukah, Marv."^note Marv said this to himself. Marv also makes a reference to the Promised Land. considering that Daniel Stern is Jewish and ad-libbed a lot of Marv's lines and antics...
  • That and the "right in the schnooz" comment.
• Inspector Javert: The hotel concierge seems a little over-eager to bust Kevin for allegedly committing credit card fraud. He should have just notified police or child social services and let them take care of the matter.
• Instant Emergency Response: Kevin calls 911 while being chased, and in only about four minutes, the police arrive at the scene to arrest Harry and Marv. That kind of response time in New York City? Doubtful, although it's always possible that some cop cars just happened to be in the area when it was radioed in. Helped by the fact he made a point to tell the dispatcher that the call was about the guys who robbed Duncan's Toy Chest — there were certainly cops out already investigating the burglar alarm, so when Kevin called in a tip on their exact location, a sign of how to find them ("watch for fireworks"), and warned they were armed with a gun, it makes sense the police would respond as soon as possible.
• Insult Backfire:
  Kate: What kind of idiots do you have working here?
  Mrs. Stone: The finest in New York.
  • And this one.
  Kevin: You guys give up? Have you had enough pain?
  Marv: (triumphantly) NEVER!
• Iron Butt Monkey: Harry and Marv really shouldn't have survived most of the stuff that happened to them. Fortunately, the physical unlikelihood of a ten-year-old kid lifting a 70-pound pipe section probably prevented a number of children across the nation from killing their older siblings with pranks.
• Irony: Kevin's family wanted to spend Christmas in Florida to enjoy gorgeous weather, only to arrive in the middle of a bleak tropical rainstorm worse than whatever kind of weather they would've had in Chicago.
• It Only Works Once: Harry and Marv tried to invoke this when they remembered Kevin smacking them in the face with paint cans in the first movie, only for Kevin to up the trick with a heavy iron pipe...which he then dropped on their privates.
• It's Personal: Once Harry and Marvel cross paths with Kevin and realize he's in New York, getting revenge on him for the events of the first film immediately supersedes their planned burglary spree.
• Just Between You and Me: Marv blabs to Kevin their plan to rob the toy store, justifying it by saying they're going to kill him soon anyway. Later when he and Harry are caught, he blabs about the plan to the cops who caught them.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In the first movie, Uncle Frank stops Kevin from explaining why he went after Buzz by yelling "Look what you did, you little jerk!" No one calls Frank out on it, and Kevin is sent to the third floor. Kevin finally gets back at Frank in this movie by calling him a cheapskate, all but proving that Frank is using his parents just so he can score a free trip to Florida. As an added burn, the vacation's a total disaster thanks to the nasty weather.
• Karmic Jackpot: Kevin thinks he's been terrible over Christmas and decides to stop the Duncan's Toy Store bank robbery both to do a good deed and protect the kids in the hospital. He even leaves a note to apologize to Mr. Duncan for breaking the window, so as to trip the burglar alarms. Mr. Duncan eyes the paper, noting that it's Plaza stationary, and he's grateful to Kevin for saving the donation money. So he sends enough presents to fill several bedrooms to the Plaza, to the suite where the family with the surname McCallister will be staying. Kevin wasn't expecting any presents, let alone one as a reward for doing good.
• Kansas City Shuffle: When climbing the stairs during the climax, Harry anticipates that Kevin will reuse his swinging paint can trap from the previous year. Kevin knows this and lures him and Marv into a false sense of security by rehashing the paint can trap, only to follow it up with a swinging lead pipe after their guard is down.
• King Incognito: Mr. Duncan, the owner of Duncan's Toy Chest, poses as an ordinary employee while talking to Kevin, who doesn't wise up until he sees a portrait of Duncan.
• Lampshade Hanging: The cast loves to remind the audience just how much of what happened in the first movie is happening again.
• Large Ham: Mr. Hector. No surprise, as he is played by Tim Curry.
  • "HARRY, I'VE REACHED THE TOP!"
• Laser-Guided Karma: Kevin's negative feelings about the family vacation in Florida get vindicated and serves as their karma when everyone (sans Kevin) discover the weather's completely miserable and they're forced to stay in their hotel watching a TV that only gets Spanish-language channels. Considering how obnoxious and unsympathetic Kevin's siblings and extended relatives tend to act towards him, it's hard to feel bad for their trip being a total bust.
• Last-Second Joke Problem: Everything is wonderful until Kevin's dad suddenly realizes how much money Kevin spent on room service.
  "KEVIN!! YOU SPENT 967 DOLLARS ON ROOM SERVICE?!"
• Last-Second Word Swap: "All right, enough with this gooey sh...ow of emotion."
• Little "No": Harry gives a particularly sad one when he sees a big pipe is about to fall on him.
• Loose Lips:
  • Marv does this.
    Marv: (to Kevin) At midnight tonight, we're hitting Duncan's Toy Chest, five floors of cash. Then after that we get a couple of phony passports then it's off to Rio...
    Harry: Marv! Marv! You want to shut up?
  • Another example, at the end of the film:
    Marv: (to the cops who are arresting them) He made us hide out in the store so we could steal all the kiddies' charity money.
    Harry: (kicks Marv) Shut up, Marv! You got the right to remain silent, you know.
    Marv: He's a little cranky. We just broke out of prison a few days ago.
    Harry: (kicks him again) SHUT UP, MARV! Jeez!

M-Z

• Mama Bear:
  • The pigeon lady. When Marv and Harry are preparing to shoot Kevin in Central Park, she approaches them with a bucket of pigeon feed and throws it on them, which causes the nearby pigeons to fly at them and pick at the feed stuck to their bodies.
  • Kate. In her words, she's so mad about the hotel letting her son leave, she will hit the mean streets of New York to look for him because, "The way I'm feeling right now, no mugger or murderer would dare mess with me!"
• Match Cut: When Kevin is watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and it gets to the part where the Grinch makes his famous smile, the scene fades to Mr. Hector making a similar smile after catching Kevin using a stolen credit card.
• Mickey Mousing: The orchestra plays three stings when Kevin dials each of the numbers in 911.
• Missed Him by That Much: Kate knocks on the door to the building where Kevin has set up his traps. Nobody answers, so she hails a cab and exits the scene. Only a few seconds later, Kevin runs up to the building. Then again, Kate could have easily set off the booby traps and gotten injured.
• Mistaken from Behind: Kevin loses track of his father in the airport and follows someone wearing the same coat, which is how he winds up on the plane to New York.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: The pigeon lady.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The moment where Kevin is walking the streets of New York on Christmas Eve, stopping by the children's hospital. It's a heart-rending Tear Jerker as he and a young patient wave to each other while "Christmas Star" plays in the background—and then Kevin remembers that Harry and Marv are planning to rob the money that is to be donated to the hospital. Cue "Setting the Traps" as Kevin prepares for battle.
    Kevin: You can mess with a lot of things, but you can't mess with kids on Christmas.
  • The ending. Kevin shares one of the turtle doves with the pigeon lady, and the two hug. Cut back to the Plaza Hotel, where Buzz gets the hotel bill that Kevin racked up. Cut back to the park, where Kevin's dad is heard yelling from the hotel: "KEVIN! YOU SPENT $967 ON ROOM SERVICE?!"
• Mundane Utility:
  • Kevin uses fireworks as emergency flares.
  • He uses the variable-speed playback on his Talkboy tape recorder to fool the hotel staff into thinking they're talking with Peter so he can reserve a room. The recorder was originally built only as a non-working prop, but enough kids wrote in asking about it that Tiger Electronics eventually started to produce it.
• Never Recycle Your Schemes: Except for the paint cans (which lure Harry and Marv into a false sense of security before Kevin throws in a painful twist at the end), Kevin doesn't reuse any of the traps he set in the first movie — many are similar, but not the same (ex. a blowtorch set off by a light bulb pull cord instead of opening a door). This is why Harry's attempts to avoid setting off traps don't work.
• New York Is Only Manhattan: While Kevin winds up landing in LaGuardia Airport in Queens, the film doesn't acknowledge it and proceeds to have him see the sights and landmarks in Manhattan and stay at The Plaza Hotel without any of the city's other boroughs being referenced.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Marv blabs his and Harry's entire plan of robbing the toy store (escape plan included) to Kevin, unaware that Kevin is recording every word. When the latter breaks free from them in the park, he forgets about the two thugs until he visits the hospital where the money is supposed to be donated. If Marv had stayed quiet, Kevin would've spent the rest of the night wandering the streets of New York (and would've likely fallen prey to the more unsavory characters), or gone to Rob's place and broken in to spend the night there. Either way, he wouldn't have bothered antagonizing the thugs any further which probably would've let them get away with robbing the toy store.
  • Marv upon getting arrested by the cop in the climax, straight up tells the cops him and Harry just escaped from prison and how they just robbed the toy store much to Harry's noticeable anger. Also tying into above, when Marv was talking about their plan to rob Duncan's toy chest, he didn't know that Kevin was recording the whole thing nor did Harry know either when he was talking about how he was going to kill Kevin. So when the cops arrive they find the tape of Marv and Harry talking about how they are going to rob the store and how Harry was planning on killing Kevin.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: Kevin lights Harry's head on fire, Harry puts it out in the toilet, not knowing it is filled with paint thinner (which looks like water at first glance), and blows the entire first floor up. Luckily, Harry only has second-degree burns on his scalp (as well as soot on his face and teeth and a damaged hat) to worry about.
• No One Should Survive That!: Oh so many, the most egregious instances being Harry surviving an explosion after sticking his burning head in a paint thinner-filled toilet, Marv getting electrocuted by an arc welder connected to a sink, and Marv getting hit with four bricks thrown from a four-story rooftop. Likewise, the pigeons should have picked them both clean of skin.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Kevin's mom has one after realizing Kevin is missing once again.
  • Kevin himself when Harry and Marv spot him and decide to say hello.
  • Kevin again at the end when his dad sees the bill for his hotel room service.
    Harry: (approaches Kevin from behind) Hiya, pal!
    Kevin: (gasps and drops his map)
• Oh, No... Not Again!:
  • This movie hangs lampshade after lampshade about something from the previous film happening again. The family wakes up late again, Kevin gets inadvertently separated from his family again, he faces off against Harry and Marv again, and so forth.
    Peter and Kate: WE DID IT AGAIN! AAH!
    Kevin: Yikes, I did it again!
  • Harry has clearly learned to anticipate some of Kevin's traps from the previous movie, such as a blowtorch to the head. He's actually on guard for this one...but when his guard slips and he looks in a mirror and sees his head on fire, he shouts "AHH! AHH! HE DID IT!" Same with the paint cans. But they weren't anticipating the giant iron bar.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Peter is normally the laid-back parent who tries to keep Kate calm and did so last year when Kevin went missing. He goes full Papa Wolf at the concierge and the staff for endangering his son over a "fraudulent" credit card, telling them off for their ego trip. Last time he was that angry, Kevin had messed up his fishing ornaments.  
• Out of the Frying Pan: Kevin escapes the Plaza Hotel staff pursuing him for credit card fraud, only to run straight into Harry and Marv.
• Police Are Useless: Averted in this movie. Unlike the ones in the first movie, who showed indifference when Kate explained to them her situation and made little effort to resolve the matter, the police officer whom Peter and Kate meet in Miami is a completely different story. Not only is he highly sympathetic to them about their plight, but when he learns that Kevin has Peter's bag which has the latter's wallet and credit card, he comes up with the idea of notifying the credit card company so that they can get a location on Kevin when he uses it, and notifies the family immediately upon discovering that he is in New York. A cop in New York at first doesn't want to help, but he goes Reasonable Authority Figure when Kate points out he understands as a parent, asks her to think of where Kevin might want to go, and when Kate realizes that Kevin might be at Rockefeller Center, he offers her a ride there.
• Powder Gag: One of the traps that Kevin sets up is a bag of plaster attached to a dangling rope, which is set up to tempt someone to use it to climb between two stories of a building despite it not being able to hold enough weight. Marv tries to use it and gets hit in the face with the heavy bag which then explodes and covers him in plaster dust.
• Predatory Prostitute: Kevin encounters some frightening New Yorkers while wandering the streets at night, including a pair of streetwalkers who make fun of him and laugh like crones.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "I never made it to the sixth grade, kid, and it doesn't look like you're gonna either." Except he doesn't get to actually kill Kevin, although he does come perilously close (see also: Would Hurt a Child and Oh, Crap!).
• Product Placement: An extensive amount for the Plaza Hotel, which was then owned by Donald Trump.
• Recorded Audio Alibi: Kevin uses an audio recording of him peeping on his uncle in the shower along with a blow-up novelty doll to trick hotel staff into thinking that his father is in the hotel room with him when he's actually there by himself. He also repeats the same trick from the first movie with another mobster movie in order to cover his escape from hotel staff.
• Re-Cut: A few scenes were removed for some television broadcasts. The most prominent was the scene where Kevin goes to the top of the World Trade Center, which was taken out for obvious reasons. Also, some of Kevin's tricks (the three extra bricks hitting Marv, the staple gun door handle, and the tool chest on the stairs) were removed, presumably for time.
• Recycled In Space: Home Alone 2 was basically exactly the same movie as Home Alone, just set in New York. Even the scary neighbor got a direct counterpart. This was even lampshaded by Harry, who mentioned that Kevin threw two paint cans the last time they tried to climb up a flight of stairs, and saw it coming. Unfortunately for them, the second time around, a sewer pipe followed immediately afterward. There are also several lampshades hung by way of Oh, No... Not Again!.
• Red Stapler: Kevin's Talkboy tape recorder; it was originally a non-working prop made for the movie, but Tiger Electronics made a real version which hit store shelves on Black Friday the same year the movie was released.
• Refuge in Audacity: What Kevin first uses to get into the hotel.
  Mrs. Stone: Can I help you?
  Kevin: A reservation for McCallister?
  Mrs. Stone: A reservation for yourself?
  Kevin: Ma'am, my feet are hardly touching the ground. I'm barely able to look over the counter. How can I make a reservation for a hotel room? Think about it. A kid coming into a hotel, making a reservation? I don't think so.
  • Counts also as Suspiciously Specific Denial.
• Revenge Before Reason: Harry and Marv have successfully walked out of prison and given that they're burglars and not mass murderers or anything like that, probably no one would give them a second look if they saw them on the street if their ability to move freely in a New York crowd is any indication. Their plans to stay free and rob a ton of money promptly go to hell once they see Kevin and decide to pay him back for the punishment he put them through in the previous film.
  • In Central Park, Marv warns that they should leave when he notices pigeons mysteriously eyeing them, but Harry is too busy taunting Kevin and trying to savor shooting him to listen.
• Rule of Three: Cedric gets the short end of the stick three times when trying to get a tip from Kevin and company. The first time, Kevin gives him a stick of gum instead of money. The second time, when Cedric says he still has some "tip" left over, Kevin flashes a wad of bills at him before closing the door. The third time, at the end of the movie, Buzz gives Cedric the wad of gum he has been chewing when he gets Kevin's room service bill.
• Same Plot Sequel: The film is basically the first Home Alone again, beat for beat. Complete with traps, Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold, Kevin playing pranks with an old gangster movie, and so on.
• Sarcastic Confession: Uncle Frank slips twice that he's using his brother and sister-in-law to score a free trip to Florida. The first time, it's aimed at Kevin after he refuses to accept Buzz's apology. The second time, he tells Kate this while saying she gives the worst wake-up calls. Of course, Kevin is the only one who calls him out on it.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Marv (of course) screams like a woman when the pigeons are pecking on him (as a Call-Back to the tarantula scene in the first film).
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Once his credit card scandal is exposed, Kevin decides to hightail it back to Chicago, not only to evade the hotel staff, but because the Wet Bandits are in town.
• Self-Parody: Has shades of this with several scenes being very similar (if a bit exaggerated) to the previous film with several characters lampshading it.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: Kevin manages to run up a $967 room service tab at the Plaza Hotel before he bails out.
• Shoot the Dog: Acknowledged by Kevin when he breaks the toy store window and includes an apology note explaining why he did it (to thwart the Wet Bandits). Naturally, the kindly owner keeps mum about the contents of the note.
• Shot in the Ass: Non-bullet example: one of Kevin's traps tricks Marv into shooting himself in the ass with a staple gun.
• Shout-Out: Mr. Hector breaks into a Slasher Smile that matches the Grinch's. Kevin also watches that movie in both films.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Uncle Frank tells Kevin not to ruin the trip because his father's paying a lot of money for it:
  Kevin: Oh, wouldn't want to spoil your fun, Mr. Cheapskate.
• Singing in the Shower: Kevin records Uncle Frank doing this, which comes in handy later...
• Skewed Priorities: Kevin probably wouldn't have gotten separated from his family at O'Hare had he not decided that putting new batteries in his Talkboy was more important than getting to the flight with his family on time.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The man whose coat is identical to Peter's. If not for his presence at the airport, Kevin wouldn't have boarded a plane to New York.
• Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Downplayed. Home Alone 2 takes place a year after the events of the first film, and naturally we'd expect the returning characters to look more-or-less the same. Yet Kevin has slightly deeper voice, Buzz is noticeably taller, skinnier, and has a really deep manly voice, and Kate is sporting wrinkles around her eyes, things that don't just spontaneously happen within year. In Real Life, it's because the film was made in 1992, two years after the making of the first film.
• So Last Season: Exploited by Kevin in the film's climax. He uses the paint can trick from the first film to lull Harry and Marv into a false sense of security when going up the stairs. After throwing both cans, he nails them both at once with a steel pipe when they're off guard. Also, instead of setting up a blowtorch to be activated by opening a door, he uses the pull cord on a hanging light bulb. Harry gets torched again specifically because he was expecting a door to activate it.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: In the second film, Andy Williams's "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" plays when the family (sans Kevin) arrives at their hotel in Florida, where it's pouring rain and the hotel is looking rundown.
  Uncle Frank: It didn't look this bad on our honeymoon...
• Stupid Crooks: Subverted. The reason Harry and Marv plot to rob Duncan's Toy Chest looks odd, but really isn't.. They need cash, but since they just broke out of prison they don't have the resources to rob high security places like jewelry stores. Harry then shoots down Marv's suggestion to rob hotel rooms as they have no way of knowing what the guests are keeping there. Duncan's makes the most sense for them to rob as it sees a high volume of sales on Christmas Eve and won't be able to deposit the cash due to shortened bank hours for the holiday.
• Taught by Experience: Played with. Going into the climax, Marv and Harry are rightfully wary of Kevin having set traps for them again. So, they're on their guard and have an idea of what to expect based on Kevin's tactics and style in the first film. Unfortunately for the Wet Bandits, they make a crucial mistake: it doesn't occur to them that Kevin (who they know from painful experience is a sharp kid) might also have learned from their confrontation a year ago. Now knowing what to expect from Marv and Harry (and knowing what they're expecting from him), Kevin wisely changes his tactics to sucker them again. It works.
• Tap on the Head: Marv is clearly concussed by all those bricks Kevin throws at his head, but he completely recovers in less than five minutes. Later, it doesn't take him very long to shake off the effects of being hit by a falling 100-pound bag of plaster.
  • Of course, he also appears to have lost 40 or so IQ points in the immediate aftermath, failing repeated spot checks and such, so maybe those bricks did have an effect after all...
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kate gives one to the hotel staff for actually believing Kevin's obviously fabricated story and for basically terrorizing him when they thought he had stolen the credit card.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: In an interesting take on the trope, we see both the setup and the payoff in that order. We first see Kevin recording his end of the conversation into the Talkboy. Then he plays it at a slower speed for the person taking the hotel reservation, and it works.
• Television Geography: Kevin calls a Limo from The Plaza to be taken to a toy store, which drops him off at Duncan's Toy Chest, a Brand X stand-in for FAO Schwarz (it was even filmed inside). At the time the film is set, the real FAO Schwarz was right across the street from The Plaza^note The location closed in 2015 and the store is now located in Rockefeller Center. and would be clearly visible from where Kevin got into the car.
• Tempting Fate: "You want to throw bricks? Go ahead; throw another one!" and "You got any more?!" Both of which result in more bricks thrown at Harry and Marv. Harry becomes a bit of a Karma Houdini in this instance in that while he is the one taunting Kevin, both of the subsequent brick throws hit Marv instead.
  • Marv says that at least this time, Kevin doesn't have a house of dangerous goodies to get them with. Turns out he does in fact have access to one, and the "goodies" are far more dangerous than before.
• The Freelance Shame Squad: When Buzz starts using his electric candle to mock Kevin during the school Christmas Pageant, basically the entire audience (except Kevin's parents and Aunt Leslie, and maybe a few others, and though not in the audience, the pianist and the conductor do not laugh either) think the equivalent of giving Kevin "bunny ears" is hilarious, and then pretending to use the candles like drumsticks to beat his head like a drum, and start laughing uproariously. It is quite possible some laugh at his expense, namely the children in the choir, but most likely, the audience goers laugh because they see it as a harmless prank and since we see it from Kevin's perspective, it comes off in a much harsher tone than it might actually have been. Kevin got the last laugh though after he knocked Buzz down causing every of the other students, the set, and the pianist, to all fall over, but of course, that got him in trouble.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In Angels with Filthy Souls, Johnny just had one long outburst at Snakes. In Angels with Filthier Souls, he opens fire while giving a Hope Spot - "One, two *BANG* three!" - continues shooting, says a Bond One-Liner, fires some more, finishes off the one liner and still has a last bullet!
• Third-Person Person: In the toy store, Kevin talks to an old man about Mr. Duncan and learns of his plan to donate to the children's hospital. As Kevin is about to leave, he sees a portrait of the man, who actually is Mr. Duncan and was using this trope during their conversation.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The family's (sans Kevin) look on their faces to see the hotel they are staying at in Miami—a cramped, run-down dump. Frank comments that it hadn't looked that bad when he went there for his honeymoon.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Kevin's realization that Harry and Marv are planning to rob a toy store that intends to donate its proceeds to a children's hospital on Christmas Day.
  Kevin: You can mess with a lot of things, but you can't mess with kids on Christmas.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Marv opens a door and does not look at the ground before taking a step....that leads to him falling through a huge gaping hole that nobody with half a brain cell could possibly miss. Justified, Marv had multiple bricks thrown at his head a few moments before opening the door and falling, and likely wasn't thinking straight.
  • The hotel staff, who decide to chase a kid out of their hotel and into the streets of New York, alone, instead of asking him where he got the credit card and just keeping him until a relative could come and get him. Kate and Peter are understandably upset when they find out, and the former actually slaps the concierge for being an idiot.
  Kate: What kind of IDIOTS do you have working here?
  Mrs. Stone: The finest in New York.
• Two-Faced Aside: Buzz apologizes (insincerely) to the family, then whispers "Beat that, you little trout-sniffer" to Kevin before he tries to do the same... leading to the rant that gets Kevin into trouble in that movie.
• Villain Ball: Harry and Marv start carrying it the moment they encounter Kevin in front of the toy store. They likely would have gotten away with the heist had they not gotten him involved.
• Villainous Breakdown: While chasing Kevin onto the roof of his uncle's townhouse, Harry says to Marv, "I don't care if I get the chair, I'm killing that kid!"
• Villains Out Shopping: Marv wanting to go to the Central Park Zoo, while waiting to kill time before the robbery of the toy store. And earlier, before he and Harry discuss their plan to rob the toy store, Marv is ice skating in the park.
• Villainy-Free Villain: The hotel staff, especially Mr. Hector. He clearly knows Kevin's story about his father being in New York on business is fabricated. And, when the hotel staff confronts Kevin about the credit card, it was because Kevin had committed credit card fraud by using his father's card without permission. But Mr. Hector is such a smug jerk about finding out all of this that the sympathy still rests with Kevin. His reaction to finding out an unescorted minor has been committing fraud to stay at the hotel is essential to chase said minor out onto the streets rather than calling any kind of social services or police. He told Kevin that he was going to call the police, prompting Kevin to run. He probably did, given that Kevin's family knew where he was staying later on. Though by that point he probably phoned the NYPD because (thanks to Kevin playing the Angels With Even Filthier Souls video with the volume turned all the way up) he thought an armed maniac was living in that room. Thinking the maniac was of higher priority, he allowed Kevin to escape by running onto the streets. Not to mention as concierge none of this is his concern. He should have brought his suspicions to Security or the House Detective and let them handle the investigation.
• The Voiceless: The woman Marv flirted, except for the "hmph!".
• We Are Not Going Through That Again: Discussed after Kevin is sent to the third floor for refusing Buzz's apology. Kate tries to warn Kevin about him getting in trouble the year before which led to their travel plans getting jeopardized. Kevin is still upset about Buzz getting preferential treatment and outright tells her that he doesn't care if they spend this Christmas apart as well. Kate even gives him more chances to apologize or at least think about what he's saying, but she stops when Kevin shows no signs of budging. This is ultimately subverted when Kevin makes it to the airport with his family but gets on the wrong plane.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We never do find out what happens to Uncle Rob's house. When the construction workers get back to remodeling the house once Christmas and New Year's are over, they are likely to notice that there are bricks (likely with blood marks due to hitting Marv's head as well) all over the sidewalk, a doorknob that's pulled out of the door, a big gaping hole in the entryway, varnish all over the side of the house, paint and silly soap all over the basement floor, a broken ladder, etc.
• What Would X Do?: To help Kate find Kevin, the NYPD cop asks her what she would do if she were him. Kate figures out that Kevin's love for Christmas trees would lead him to Rockefeller Center.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Harry catches on to this, but fortunately he never gets a chance to.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Takes place a year after the first movie, yet at one point Kevin says that he's ten years old rather than nine.
• Wrong Assumption: Harry and Marv offer to leave Kevin alone if he gives them his camera, with which he's already taken pictures of them robbing the toy store. They've either forgotten or failed to notice that he's using an instant camera, which spits out pictures as they're taken. Kevin can safely give up the camera as long as he keeps the pictures separate from it (which he does).
• X-Ray Sparks: In a rare live-action version, Marv uses a sink to wash off the paint Kevin spilled on him... except Kevin hooked up the taps to an electric arc welder. While shaking and screaming in agony, Marv actually becomes a skeleton puppet. When Kevin cuts the juice, Marv is back and collapses on the ground, shaking and smoking.

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"Another Christmas in the trenches."