In Home Alone 1 & 2, he is the one to foil Harry and Marv's plans who plan to rob his house in the first film and steal charity money from children in the second.
He shows remorse for running from the store without paying for the toothbrush he bought, saying he's a criminal.
While he was home alone, he became more responsible such as doing laundry and buying groceries.
He became remorseful for how he treated his family in both films (especially him saying to his mother "I don't want to see you again for the rest of my whole life" in the first film), admitting he's lonely without them and even asked a fake Santa Claus for his family back in the first film.
He booby traps his whole house to defend it from Harry and Marv.
In both films, he calls 911 and reports them about Harry and Marv on the loose.
He chastises his family by calling them stupid for believing Buzz's "sincere" apology and calls Uncle Frank "Mr. Cheapskate" when he told him not to ruin "his" trip.
Although he was scared of Old Man Marley and the Pigeon Lady at first, he realizes they were not scary at all and just misunderstood. He sympathizes with them and even gives them advice that Old Man Marley should reconcile his relationship with his son and the Pigeon Lady should start warming up to others again.
This would later reward him as Old Man Marley smashes the heads of the crooks to save Kevin, while the Pigeon Lady tosses birdseed on them to give a distraction to Kevin and make sure he was safe, putting herself at risk to protect Kevin.
He records Marv discussing his and Harry's plan to steal money from the children's charity while being captured by them.
He shows remorse for using his dad's credit card to check in to the hotel.
Attempts to stop Harry and Marv from stealing money from the children's charity, even by throwing a rock at the window, but wrote an apology note to E.F. Duncan saying he'll pay for it.
He lights a firework, giving away Harry and Marv's location to the cops, foiling their plan to steal the money.
He is extremely loyal to his family, even if they pick on him all the time.
He usually forgives his mother and his family in the end of both films and even apologized to his mother in the second film.
He donated to an orphanage foundation out of the kindness of his heart in the second film.
In the fourth film, he tries to stop Marv and his wife Vera who want to kidnap the crown prince for ransom.
He floods the mansion to send away Marv and Vera. Although it did cause a mess, it was for a good reason.
Although he didn't trust the butler Mr. Prescott in the fourth film, he starts to warm up to him in the end.
When no one believes him about the problem, Kevin decides to stop Marv and Vera himself and sets up booby traps for them.
He ultimately saved the prince from Marv, Vera, and Molly's kidnapping plot and gets them arrested.
Although he didn't trust Mr. Prescott at first and tormented him, he later realized he wasn't working against him and worked with him to stop Marv, Vera, and Molly.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
Despite being selfless and sympathetic, he can be jerkish, mischievous, argumentative, petty-minded, stubborn, and even aggressive at times. For example:
Even though Buzz is a bully to Kevin, Kevin treats him badly too at times:
He shoved Buzz against the table simply because he ate his cheese pizza, and while the chaos to come was not Kevin's intention and Buzz had it coming, he still didn’t apologize for this.
He intentionally barged into Buzz's room while home alone, negligently destroying his entire shelf, nabbing his life savings and taunting his girlfriend. Although he needs the money to pay for shopping and supplies in order to survive and Buzz's room deserves to be wrecked anyway.
He pushes Buzz to the ground in the second film due to Buzz humiliating him in the school choir, causing a huge pileup of people and the set to collapse, again this wasn't Kevin's intention, but he wasn't very sorry for it either.
It's mentioned that in Home Sweet Home Alone that he prank calls Buzz, who is now a cop, every year just to mess with him, still showing signs of mischief even in his adult years. Although Buzz is still admittedly a jerk even after all these years, it's worth noting that prank calling emergency services is illegal, which could get Kevin arrested.
In the original film, he pranked a pizza delivery employee by playing a scene from a movie where a man is shooting at a guy and makes the pizza guy think he is being shot at, despite the employee merely doing his job with no bad intentions.
Although it was out of impulse, he ran when seeing Old Man Marley and didn’t pay for his toothbrush, but he did show remorse for it, though.
He records audio of Uncle Frank taking a shower, and while it was played for laughs, it was very invasive.
He when escaping the hotel staff, he pranks them by playing a scene from the sequel to the movie he watched in the first film where a man shoots his girlfriend and makes them think there was a crazy gunman in the hotel, as he didn’t care if it would cause panic among the guests.
In the fourth film, he was mistrustful of Mr. Prescott and locked him in the freezer and the basement after thinking he was working with Marv and Vera, but he later realizes it was a misunderstanding, making it a minor prevention.
He's lethal to an extent as his booby traps in all three films seriously injured his nemeses, especially Harry and Marv, with some traps even having the potential to maim or kill them. Although he was trying to stop them and showed no intention of killing them, he still took it way too far and even shows sadistic delight in seeing them get hurt, as Harry and Marv did nothing truly heinous to warrant such torture. Several examples include:
When Marv pulled on a light switch, an iron fell onto his head.
He heated up a doorbell and burned Harry’s hand, which can be labeled as mutilation since it left a permanent mark on his hand. This wasn’t even the first burn he gave him as he had a blowtorch trap for Harry, which burned his scalp.
When Harry and Marv were trying to get to his treehouse, he cut the zip line and even said “Check this out,” before they slammed into the wall of the house.
He kept on throwing bricks at Marv in the 2nd movie.
For the 3rd time, he gave Harry a horrible burn by a blowtorch, and to add insult to injury, there was no water or snow, so he had to dunk his head into a toilet filled with gasoline. This results in the bathroom exploding.
In probably the deadliest incident, he electrocutes Marv so much that his skeleton briefly becomes visible.
He even said "Merry Christmas" before lighting fire on the rope Harry and Marv were climbing down on, almost burning them and showed no remorse for it, which is far too severe for Near Pure Good.
Altogether, his retaliation against all the bullies he finds with goes way too far.
He used his dad's credit card to check into the Plaza Hotel and racks it up to $967 without his presence which made Buzz mad at him for it in the end of the second film. Although, to be fair, he did need a place to stay after inadvertently getting sent to New York instead of Florida with his family.
Trivia[]
He is the first ever Inconsistently Admirable to be headlined.
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