Susan Granger’s review of “Unaccompanied Minors” (Warner Bros.)
Missing every opportunity to make an amusing “Home Alone” comedy out of this stranded-in-an-airport situation, “Unaccompanied Minors” deserves to get lost.
It’s Christmas Eve and a major blizzard has shut down a midwestern airport. Among the stranded travelers are five mischievous youngsters who escape from a basement holding cell and stage a frantic free-for-all. There’s resourceful Spencer (Dyllan Christopher), sassy rich girl Grace (Gina Mantegna), trailer-park tomboy Donna (Quinn Shepherd), brainiac Charlie (Tyler James Williams of “Everybody Loves Chris”) and obsese comic-book geek Timothy a.k.a. Beef (Brett Kelly), who talks primarily with his Aquaman toy.
Their mission is to rescue Spencer’s little sister, Katherine (Dominique Saldana) and make sure she’s not disappointed by Santa Claus on Christmas morning. And their pursurers are the Grinch-like passenger-relations manager (Lewis Black), who had planned on spending the holidays in Hawaii, and his assistant (Wilmer Valderrama), along with the bumbling security guards (“Saturday Night Live’s” Rob Riggle and Kids in the Hall’s Bruce McCullough, Mark McKinney and Kevin MacDonald).
Ignoring the myriad of possibilities explored in “The Terminal” or even “Christmas Vacation,” writers Jacob Meszaros & Mya Stark, along with director Paul Feig (TV’s “Freaks and Geeks,” “The Office,” “Arrested Development”), come up with surprisingly little for the kids to do, even when they ransack the unclaimed luggage warehouse. The entire concept could be subtitled: The Joy of Vandalism. There’s a bit of sloppy sentiment and subtle commentary on divorced parents – with adult participation by Jessica Walter, Teri Garr, Tony Hale, B.J. Novak, Mindy Kaling and “The Daily Show” regular Rob Corddry – but on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Unaccompanied Minors” is a tedious 2. Clocked at a long, long 89 minutes, it’s a terminally boring layover.
