Vacation

***DISCLAIMER*** The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion (or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay. 4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching!  Well, at the very least, this film isn't Christmas Vacation 2.

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.

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?

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.

One of the misses is that Christina Applegate doesn't really feel like she's
contributing at all.

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.

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.

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.

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.

#NotMyRusty

At times, Vacation is super hysterical and a laugh-out-loud riot that is a lot of fun and filled with hte nostalgia of the 1983 cult classic and, at other times, it is a weak, unfunny mess of bottom-of-the-barrel gags that flounder around in a desperate grab for attention and pity laughs.  I won?t call the film a waste of time because when it works, it works insanely well but, in the end, the film doesn?t stand much of a chance at holding its own against some of the better films in this franchise.  But it?s still way better than Vegas.  I can?t emphasize that enough.

Ed Helms Helms New Slightly Amusing VACATION Reboot/Sequel

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

VACATION (Dirs. John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein, 2015)

?I?ve never even heard of the original vacation,? protests James Griswold (Skyler Gisondo), when his father Rusty (Ed Helms) pitches to his family that they should drive cross-country to Walley World just like he did with his parents and sister over 30 years ago.

?It doesn?t matter. The new vacation will stand on its own.? Helm?s Rusty declares, but despite that being a solid meta joke, sadly it?s not true. This new reboot/sequel contains so many call backs to the original VACATION that there?s no way to forget it at any point during this film?s 99 minute running time. Queue Lindsay Buckingham?s ?Holiday Road? and we?re off!

For the fifth film in the VACATION franchise (there?s also a TV movie, NATIONAL LAMPOON?S CHRISTMAS VACATION 2, and a 14 minute short film, HOTEL HELL VACATION, but let?s not count those), Helms and Christina Applegate as his wife Debbie take over from Chevy Chase and Beverly D?Angelo as the next generation of Griswolds to make the hellacious trek to the fictional theme park, and I give major kudos for that excellent casting.

Continuing on the meta joke above, Rusty says: ?My vacation had a boy and a girl. This one has two boys. And I?m sure there will be plenty of other differences.? Those two boys are Skyler Gisondo as the sensitive, guitar playing James, and Steele Stebbons as the foul mouthed bullying younger brother Kevin. The comic premise that the younger, much smaller brother bullies the older one isn?t as funny as the filmmakers think it is, and it joins many jokes here in that regard.

Remember the Wagon Queen Family Truckster Station Wagon in the first one? Well, this time the Griswolds are driving an Albanian rental minivan called The Tartan Prancer loaded with confusing features (its key device has a bunch of buttons with inexplicable symbols on them, including a swastika). And that?s one of the better running gags.

But just like Chase and D?Angelo who both put in welcome cameo appearances reprising their iconic roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold now as owners of a bed and breakfast in San Fransisco, don?t count the Family Truckster out ? it too shows up. Sadly, despite a passing reference to Cousin Eddie, Randy Quaid is nowhere to be seen. That alone would?ve taken this to the next level.

I did chuckle a lot throughout this new VACATION ? I lightly laughed at a scene where they visited Applegate?s old college sorority in Memphis and it?s revealed that she used to be a wild party girl (?Debbie Do Anything?), I snickered a bit at Helms trying to get his family into a car sing along of Seal?s ?Kiss From A Rose,? and I came the closest to actual audible laughter when Charlie Day of It?s Always Sunny in Philadephia popped up as a rafting guide who starts out all super positive but then gets suicidal when his fianc?e breaks up with him over the phone.

It?s essentially and predictably a series of farcical road trip sketches, some of which more match the crude cringe comedy tone of recent fare like WE?RE THE MILLERS or IDENTITY THIEF than the more relatable vibe of the VACATION movies I knew as a kid back when they were still under the National Lampoon banner.

And I wasn?t really into the sequence where they stay with Rusty?s sister, now played by Leslie Mann, who?s married to Chris Hemsworth (THOR) as ?up and coming anchorman.? Helms being threatened by Applegate?s attraction to Hemsworth is clumsily handled, and Mann is barely given anything to do.

I also disliked the callback to Christie Brinkley's role as ?The Girl in the Red Ferrari? who flirted with Chase in VACATION '83, in which up and coming supermodel Hannah Davis fills in as ?Ferrari Girl? to flirt with Helms, but has an especially crude and unfunny fate. 

But overall writer/directors Daley and Goldstein have largely captured the endearingly lowbrow spirit of the famously hapless Griswold family?s ?quest for fun? as Chase famously called it in the first one.

When I was a kid, and a big fan of comedy and Chase (back when those things weren?t mutually exclusive) I saw the original in the summer of ?83 and loved it. I even read John Hughes? short story, ?Vacation ?58,? which Hughes adapted into the screenplay and had the movie poster on my bedroom wall (yes, I was that kind of comedy geek, but that poster, painted by Boris Vallejo, is pretty awesome). That said, I really don?t regard it to be a comedy classic (or any of the VACATION movies for that matter). They are in the category of films that I consider just funny enough to get by.

Daley and Goldstein?s homage to the vacation house that Hughes, Harold Ramis, and Chevy built has a fair amount going for it mostly in Helms? and Applegates? go for broke performances, a smattering of one-liners and gags that land, and a few surprise guest appearances, but it really suffers from way too much gross-out humor. There?s vomit aplenty in the aforementioned college sorority event skit, and in the movie?s most disgusting moment, the family goes bathing in a raw sewage treatment area that they mistakenly thought was their own private hot springs.

To be fair, that?s exactly the level of crassness that the other VACATIONs often reveled in. But then they had bigger, more genuine laughs, and an actual heart beating behind it. As it stands, VACATION ?15 may elicit some laughter from audiences, but it sure won?t make them whistle ?Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah? out of their assholes.

More later...

Ed Helms Helms New Slightly Amusing VACATION Reboot/Sequel

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

VACATION (Dirs. John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein, 2015)

?I?ve never even heard of the original vacation,? protests James Griswold (Skyler Gisondo), when his father Rusty (Ed Helms) pitches to his family that they should drive cross-country to Walley World just like he did with his parents and sister over 30 years ago.

?It doesn?t matter. The new vacation will stand on its own.? Helm?s Rusty declares, but despite that being a solid meta joke, sadly it?s not true. This new reboot/sequel contains so many call backs to the original VACATION that there?s no way to forget it at any point during this film?s 99 minute running time. Queue Lindsay Buckingham?s ?Holiday Road? and we?re off!

For the fifth film in the VACATION franchise (there?s also a TV movie, NATIONAL LAMPOON?S CHRISTMAS VACATION 2, and a 14 minute short film, HOTEL HELL VACATION, but let?s not count those), Helms and Christina Applegate as his wife Debbie take over from Chevy Chase and Beverly D?Angelo as the next generation of Griswolds to make the hellacious trek to the fictional theme park, and I give major kudos for that excellent casting.

Continuing on the meta joke above, Rusty says: ?My vacation had a boy and a girl. This one has two boys. And I?m sure there will be plenty of other differences.? Those two boys are Skyler Gisondo as the sensitive, guitar playing James, and Steele Stebbons as the foul mouthed bullying younger brother Kevin. The comic premise that the younger, much smaller brother bullies the older one isn?t as funny as the filmmakers think it is, and it joins many jokes here in that regard.

Remember the Wagon Queen Family Truckster Station Wagon in the first one? Well, this time the Griswolds are driving an Albanian rental minivan called The Tartan Prancer loaded with confusing features (its key device has a bunch of buttons with inexplicable symbols on them, including a swastika). And that?s one of the better running gags.

But just like Chase and D?Angelo who both put in welcome cameo appearances reprising their iconic roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold now as owners of a bed and breakfast in San Fransisco, don?t count the Family Truckster out ? it too shows up. Sadly, despite a passing reference to Cousin Eddie, Randy Quaid is nowhere to be seen. That alone would?ve taken this to the next level.

I did chuckle a lot throughout this new VACATION ? I lightly laughed at a scene where they visited Applegate?s old college sorority in Memphis and it?s revealed that she used to be a wild party girl (?Debbie Do Anything?), I snickered a bit at Helms trying to get his family into a car sing along of Seal?s ?Kiss From A Rose,? and I came the closest to actual audible laughter when Charlie Day of It?s Always Sunny in Philadephia popped up as a rafting guide who starts out all super positive but then gets suicidal when his fianc?e breaks up with him over the phone.

It?s essentially and predictably a series of farcical road trip sketches, some of which more match the crude cringe comedy tone of recent fare like WE?RE THE MILLERS or IDENTITY THIEF than the more relatable vibe of the VACATION movies I knew as a kid back when they were still under the National Lampoon banner.

And I wasn?t really into the sequence where they stay with Rusty?s sister, now played by Leslie Mann, who?s married to Chris Hemsworth (THOR) as ?up and coming anchorman.? Helms being threatened by Applegate?s attraction to Hemsworth is clumsily handled, and Mann is barely given anything to do.

I also disliked the callback to Christie Brinkley's role as ?The Girl in the Red Ferrari? who flirted with Chase in VACATION '83, in which up and coming supermodel Hannah Davis fills in as ?Ferrari Girl? to flirt with Helms, but has an especially crude and unfunny fate. 

But overall writer/directors Daley and Goldstein have largely captured the endearingly lowbrow spirit of the famously hapless Griswold family?s ?quest for fun? as Chase famously called it in the first one.

When I was a kid, and a big fan of comedy and Chase (back when those things weren?t mutually exclusive) I saw the original in the summer of ?83 and loved it. I even read John Hughes? short story, ?Vacation ?58,? which Hughes adapted into the screenplay and had the movie poster on my bedroom wall (yes, I was that kind of comedy geek, but that poster, painted by Boris Vallejo, is pretty awesome). That said, I really don?t regard it to be a comedy classic (or any of the VACATION movies for that matter). They are in the category of films that I consider just funny enough to get by.

Daley and Goldstein?s homage to the vacation house that Hughes, Harold Ramis, and Chevy built has a fair amount going for it mostly in Helms? and Applegates? go for broke performances, a smattering of one-liners and gags that land, and a few surprise guest appearances, but it really suffers from way too much gross-out humor. There?s vomit aplenty in the aforementioned college sorority event skit, and in the movie?s most disgusting moment, the family goes bathing in a raw sewage treatment area that they mistakenly thought was their own private hot springs.

To be fair, that?s exactly the level of crassness that the other VACATIONs often reveled in. But then they had bigger, more genuine laughs, and an actual heart beating behind it. As it stands, VACATION ?15 may elicit some laughter from audiences, but it sure won?t make them whistle ?Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah? out of their assholes.

More later...