Vacation Review: “Big on laughs, but lacks heart”

Vacation review: “Strips away the atmosphere and heart of the original and fills in the blanks with dick and fart jokes…”

Vacation review

For those in the know, the 1983 Vacation is a true comedy classic; the excellent writer/director team of John Hughes and Harold Ramis with Chevy Chase at the top of his game, effortlessly spoofing the sincere and absurd moments of the average American family holiday. Sadly the sands of time have pretty much buried the film and so the producers of Wedding Crashers and We’re the Millers saw fit to dust off the Griswolds for a new generation. The question is; does this belated sequel have the spark of it’s forbearer?

Hoping for some much needed family bonding and to re-live his happiest summer vacation, down-trodden nice guy Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) surprises his wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) and their two sons with a cross-country road trip to the Walley World theme park. Cue a series of unfortunate events as the Griswolds goof their way across America with moderate comedic success. Despite clever pokes at it’s reboot roots and some decent gross-out laughs Vacation too often feels like a series of disjointed sketches.

Vacation review continues below :: Watch the red-band Vacation movie trailer

Having penned Horrible Bosses and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone writing turned directing duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein ably furnish the cast of Vacation with snappy dialogue, both sharp and crude. Whether it’s Rusty’s can-do positivity or bickering brothers, a host of fleeting characters bat around a stream of unfaltering funnies and some great running gags (rim-jobs and rapist truckers to name but a few). The duo also hit upon a couple great character dynamics such as oldest son James’ (Skyler Gisondo) incessant torment at the plastic-bag wielding hands of his younger brother Kevin (Steele Stebbins).

Vacation review

Vacation moves at a brisk pace but piles the gags a little too thick and fast and fails to fully exploit the idiosyncrasies of the family unit. Ed Helms (ordinarily fantastically funny) seems a little lost with a character too cartoony and half-baked. It’s unclear how aware he is of his own dad-isms to the point where you’ll wonder whether or not he really does know what a rim job is? Helms’ turns in films like Jeff Who Lives at Home and Cedar Rapids create a far more subtle and well-observed humour that we’d have loved to have seen here. While Helms struggles to resolve his character’s inconsistencies the rest of the cast willingly pick up the slack. There are a host of amusing cameos but Chris Hemsworth stands head and shoulders above the pack as hilarious, macho brother-in-law Stone, whose constant stream of faucet analogies will have you in tears; he’s no Randy Quaid, but it’s the best you’ll get.

Vacation review

The hit and miss nature of characters aren’t the only things muddling Vacation’s tone; plot devices like the family’s Albanian rental car, though a vehicle for chuckles, get a bit silly if you stop to ponder why any manufacturer would put buttons on their product with such disastrous functionality, and when a middle-aged couple aren’t aware how trying to rub off a giant graffiti penis might appear to bystanders, things feel a bit Naked Gun and not enough National Lampoon.

Ultimately Vacation is a missed opportunity, suffering from the predictable symptoms of Hollywood reboot/remake culture. Francis Daley and Goldstein strip away the atmosphere and heart of the original and fills in the blanks with dick and fart jokes, which cause for concern as the pair recently announced their intention to write the new Spider-man movie with a distinct John Hughes-esque tone. We’re the Millers did the same job but better; immature and outrageous for sure, but at least it kept the characters and story rooted in the same reality.

Too glossy, more than a little silly and lacking anything special. Vacation? You may as well stay at home!

Vacation review by Joe Upton, August 2015

Vacation is now playing in US cinemas, and opens in UK cinemas on Friday 21st August 2015.