Vacation ? 3 out of 5
It?s been over 30 years since the Griswolds first took their
original vacation to Wally World in John Hughes? National Lampoon?s
Vacation. It was a classic trip that
still holds up today and even gave us more laughs when the Griswalds went to
Europe and, in my opinion, hit their highest note when the holidays came and we
got Christmas Vacation.
Since that time of egg nog and good cheer, we had some a more
forgettable trip to Vegas but how does this new trip hold up? How does this non-reboot that?s sort of a reboot but
also is a remake but not really remake sequel that is simple titled Vacation rank? Well, long story short, it?s better than
Vegas Vacation, I can tell ya that.
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| Chase, taking on the Mad Scientist look now. |
Rusty Griswold is now an adult and is being portrayed, once
again, by a different actor (this time it?s Ed Helms). Well, it seems his wife Debbie (Christina
Applegate) isn?t the happiest in their marriage and isn?t looking forward to
their yearly vacation to a boring old cabin by the lake. So, Rusty decides to pack the car, grab his
boys; James (Skylar Gisondo) and Kevin (Stelle Stebbins), and recreate the vacation
his father took him on years ago and head to Wally World. Well, things don't go quite as planned and life
makes sure to throw a wrench in the gears as often as it can. Can the Griswalds survive the trip, and each
other, and make it to the greatest theme park in the country? Or will everything go down in flames?
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| And the "Holiday Road" song should be cemented in your brain right about now. |
Whenever I review a comedy that I don?t feel strongly about,
I always feel the need to remind myself that comedy is very subjective?in fact,
the two most subjective genres in the world of film, in my opinion, are comedy
and horror because the experiences are way more personal than other types of
films. When it comes to what makes us
laugh and what makes us scared, so much of what we see and hear can result in
a wide variety of reactions. What scares
or makes one person laugh can be annoying or lame to others. With that being said, I won?t say that
Vacation is an instant classic like the first trip so many years ago. The film isn?t terrible but it is very hit or
miss.
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| One of the misses is that Christina Applegate doesn't really feel like she's contributing at all. |
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| It'll be a cold day in hell when Charlie Day is not funny. |
Some of the film?s strongest points involved the wide
variety of characters that come into play on the trip and the actors who
portrayed them. Proven funny-makers like
Leslie Mann, Charlie Day, Keegan-Michael Key, Nick Kroll, Tim Heidecker,
Kaitlin Olson, Michael Pe?a and Colin Hanks show up and provide some very
amusing and outright hilarious sequences that really help move the film along
and make up for the less-than-funny moments that bog the story down. Additionally, there are times when actors who
aren?t traditionally known for doing silly comedies come in and really had me
rolling. Actors like Chris Hemsworth and
Norman Reedus had some incredible solid scenes that proved to steal the moment and
became excellently written and incredibly performed bits of comedy gold.
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| See the gag is he has a big dick--which, honestly, could have been a terrible joke if Hemsworth didn't nail it just right. Yep, that line sounded weird to me, too. |
Another element that worked fantastically well with the film
was Steele Stebbins as Kevin, the younger sibling in the Griswold family. Without a hint of doubt in my book, this kid
was the funniest member of the family and had so many extremely hilarious
moments. His character would constantly
antagonize and berate his older brother and the vulgar things that would come
out of his mouth proved to be the right amount of shock value to be hysterical
but without crossing the line and feeling like it was being vulgar to get the
cheap laugh.
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| Also, the kid tries to murder people by suffocating them. That's just Comedy 101. |
The parts that slowed the film down and weakened it to the
point it was nearly as bad as Vegas is that a lot of the jokes were really
poorly written. There are some gags that
try to poke fun at our digital and social media age but come off less like a
rousing send up of this reality and more like an aging stand-up comedian in a
dark, smoking and sparsely filled nightclub saying things like, ?What?s the
deal with Facebook? It?s not a face that
you can see in a book, is it?? Then,
when you don?t have these weak bits, you have the even weaker bits of being
gross for the sake of a cheap laugh?only the laughs didn?t arrive for me. I stated that Stebbins? character of Kevin
was written incredible well and was able to be that balanced of a character that
could say and do shocking things without feeling like a cheap shocking bit but
this balance isn?t seen in such parts as the family bathing in sewage
run-off. Instead, these parts just felt
like diving down to the lowest common denominator in order to get a quick laugh
but they came off more desperate or like throw-away gags so they ended up more
groan-inducing than chuckle worthy.
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| This was definitely the lowest of the low points with the humor. |
Finally, the last element that really hurt this feature is
the fact that some members of the cast didn?t feel right or just didn?t need to
be there. For example, the bloated
corpse that appears to be Chevy Chase (seriously, he now looks like he could
play a drowned mad scientist on an episode of C.S.I.). I?d hate to kick a man when he?s down but the
reality is Chase?s glory days are long behind him and matters are only made
worse during his short scene when you see that he is trying way, way, WAY too
hard to make jokes out of nothing. It?s
sorta sad and depressing to watch.
Almost as sad as seeing Ed Helms not really channeling even anything
remotely close to what other actors brought when they played Rusty. As much as I like the guy in the right role,
Helms just didn?t work as Rusty because he simply wasn?t Rusty. He was playing the same role he always plays
and that is basically just being Ed Helms.
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| #NotMyRusty |
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