In the absence of Macaulay Culkin, cute little Alex D Linz plays the resourceful youngster who's on his own in the house, where he fends off an international espionage team trying to steal back a top-secret computer chip hidden in his new toy. Pity the hapless baddies as the plucky boy devises ingenious booby traps and performs engaging heroics to foil them. Writer John Hughes's third neatly plotted variation on the same theme is good knockabout fun, with Linz a winning replacement for Culkin. There are some genuine laughs, and not too much saccharin or cartoon-style brutality.

9-year-old Alex Pruitt is home alone with the chicken pox. Turns out, due to a mix-up among nefarious spies, Alex was given a toy car concealing a top-secret microchip. Now Alex must fend off the spies as they try to break into his house to get it back.