<P> According to William Goldman, the film's success prompted the creation of a Hollywood verb: "to be Home Aloned", meaning to have a film's box office reduced by the impact of Home Alone . </P> <P> On Rotten Tomatoes, Home Alone holds an approval rating of 62% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5 / 10 . The site's critical consensus reads: "Home Alone's uneven but frequently funny premise stretched unreasonably thin is buoyed by Macaulay Culkin's cute performance and strong supporting stars ." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, it has a score of 63 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale . </P> <P> Variety magazine praised the film for its cast . Jeanne Cooper of The Washington Post praised the film for its comedic approach . Hal Hinson, also of The Washington Post, praised Chris Columbus's direction and Culkin's acting . Although Caryn James of The New York Times complained that the film's first half is "flat and unsurprising as its cute little premise suggests", she praised the second half for its slapstick humor . She also praised the conversation between Kevin and Marley, as well as the film's final scenes . </P> <P> Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun - Times gave the film a ​ 2 ⁄ out of 4 - star rating . He compared the elaborate booby - traps in the film to Rube Goldberg machines, writing "they're the kinds of traps that any 8 - year - old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people" and criticized the plot as "so implausible that it makes it hard for (him) to really care about the plight of the kid (Kevin)". However, he praised Culkin's performance . Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly magazine gave the film a "D" grade, criticizing the film for its "sadistic festival of adult - bashing". Gleiberman said that "(John) Hughes is pulling our strings as though he'd never learn to do anything else". </P>

Who plays the mum in home alone 3