It was when the barbell fell on the villains' heads that my intense dislike for John Hughes' brand of painful slapstick reached its zenith during "Home Alone 3."

Though it probably comes as no surprise to anyone, this entry in the "Home Alone" series (which now includes "101 Dalmatians" and "Flubber") is nothing more than a retread of the original.

Different kid, different mother — though the youngster is precocious and viciously inventive, and the mother has red hair — same old paint-bucket-to-the-head physical comedy.

More specifically, these bad guys are:

— Hit in the head with garden tools.

— Run into by a van.

— Dragged by a dog.

— Electrocuted.

— Shot by their own bullets.

— Hit in the face with a trunk full of books.

— Hit on the head with a power mower.

— Thrown face-first into a pile of snow.

— Thrown face-fist into a pool of tar.

— Thrown into the freezing water of a swimming pool.

— And, of course, hit in the crotch.

The story has something to do with terrorists working for Korea. They steal a U.S. missile computer chip and hide it in a toy car. At an airport, the car is mistakenly taken by an innocent suburbanite. The bad guys travel to Chicago to retrieve it. And only young Alex (Alex D. Linz, of "One Fine Day") can save the day, since he has the chicken pox and his mother has left him . . . home alone.

The first "Home Alone" is still on the all-time Top 10 roster of cinematic moneymakers, and adapting that formula to every movie he touches seems to have taken over Hughes' life. He's apparently forgotten all about his teenage comedies ("Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," "Weird Science") and his later forays into adult comedy ("Planes, Trains & Automobiles," "She's Having My Baby"). Instead, he concentrates solely on childish, pain-is-funny fantasies, which he now incorporates into familiar material, ranging from "Dennis the Menace" to "101 Dalmatians" to "Flubber."

And since they make money . . . big money . . . who's going to stop him?

"Home Alone 3" is rated PG for violence, vulgarity, profanity and a partially nude poster.