Where to watch Richie Rich
2 Stars
The richest kid in the world, Richie Rich, has everything he wants, except companionship. While representing his father at a factory opening, he sees some kids playing baseball across the street. Richie wants to join in, but they don’t want him around. When a plot to kill the Rich family is devised by Rich Industries’ top executive, Laurence Van Dough, Richie must take over control of the company while searching for his lost parents with the help of some new friends.
Richie Rich has a surprisingly mature storyline, but the excessive dialogue in the first hour might bore younger viewers, who are the movie’s intended audience. Macaulay Culkin’s popularity had significantly declined by 1994, when he starred in three films, including Richie Rich. This may have contributed to his decision to take a nine-year break from acting. Despite this, Culkin was the perfect choice to play ‘the world’s richest kid’, given his fame from Home Alone. However, the film’s storyline and heavy subplots, such as a corporate takeover, a wrongly imprisoned servant, and Richie’s presumed dead parents in a plane crash, make it unsuitable for children.
The glaring missed opportunity is in the misuse of television star John Laroquette. He is an actor who hasn’t been able to shed his slimy persona honed throughout nine seasons on the TV series Night Court. The few movie roles that Laroquette has chosen all turned out to be duds that did nothing to further his big-screen ambitions. Richie Rich becomes a pale clone of Caulkin’s own Home Alone, although this time it’s a group of kids breaking into a fortified mansion. Over-produced by uber-producer Joel Silver and underwritten, making the final product a good-looking curiosity, Richie Rich doesn’t contain a single memorable moment throughout its 100-minute running time.
Directed by: Donald Petrie
Written by: Neil Tolkin, Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein
Starring: Macaulay Culkin, Edward Herrmann, John Larroquette