by Jon Partridge
Vacation opens with the familiar sounds of Holiday Road playing over a series of photos everyday Americans have taken on trips of their own, shining a light on the personal and hilarious moments they and indeed most of us have experienced. It hints at the nostalgic treasure trove of hilarious moments that could be mined for comedic effect; sadly what follows lacks any of the charm, hilarity, or emotional connect that any of these snapshots do.
The Griswolds are in a rut. Rusty (Ed Helms) and his wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) have lost their spark, and relations between their two sons James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins) are tense. Looking to bring the family closer together and make a change from their usual annual holiday to a log cabin, he decides to retrace a cross-country road trip from his childhood, taking his family across America with the intention of riding a new rollercoaster at the theme park Walley World.
Even when suspending all logic, it’s hard to see how a grown up Rusty would be able to plan such a trip with his memories of that fateful vacation still in his mind, unless the trauma of National Lampoon’s Vacation has caused them to be suppressed. But, logic and common sense mean a film like Vacation wouldn’t be made, so we’ll just go with it I guess.
This Vacation is essentially a rehash of the original, working in a few modern twists, but with so many beats from the 1983 version it’s a wonder why they bothered making this one and didn’t just re-release the original. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (writers of Horrible Bosses) make their directorial debuts and fall short of the charming fun of the original, delivering something of a crude take on a dismal ABC comedy series. There are attempts to tell a tale of a father’s efforts to reconnect and bring his family closer together, but after setting that up, the film is essentially a farcical journey lurching from one puerile slapstick moment to another in a Albanian car that seems like something out of the darkest recesses of Homer Simpson’s mind.
Ed Helms plays, well, Ed Helms, the glossy flat character that you would expect from him. Christina Applegate, who has shown immense comedic talent in the past, is in another class to this film and conveys the weary air you would expect of a downtrodden wife and mother with aplomb. Whether this is down to acting talent or her response to being in this film is unclear. The kids at least provide some entertainment with the younger Kevin, played by the talented Steele Stebbins, being the constant thorn in the side of his more sensitive older brother James (Gisondo). While providing some interesting dark comedic notes, the latter is often used for some rather misogynistic jokes that cheapen the film. Even the eventual appearance of Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo feels tired and sad.
Those looking to the (highly billed) Chris Hemsworth to bring some of his comedic timing from the Marvel films will be disappointed as his character. Stone Crandall is a rather blunt caricature who adds little, save a predilection with faucets (yes that’s correct), and his misuse is only surpassed by how the film uses Leslie Mann (Audrey Griswold). One silver lining is Charlie Day. Charlie Day needs to be in more movies and his short stint here, while initially welcome, on reflection only serves to emphasize how fucking terrible everything else was.
Essentially it’s this family dynamic, or lack thereof, that lies at the heart of Vacation‘s problems. The original had crudeness, it had darker moments — a dog being dragged to its death behind a car immediately springing to mind — but thanks to writer John Hughes and director Harold Ramis, the ’83 Vacation lacked the coarseness so prevalent here, and was more of a screwball comedy with its cast imbuing a lot of heart into proceedings. In the end, they were a sweet bunch that you rooted for. The only thing to root for during this vacation is for the car to go off a cliff in a burning fireball and end this painful experience.
Let’s be clear here, this is not a bad movie in comparison to the original, it’s bad in comparison to most movies. The film hangs on the bad puns, slapstick comedy, and gross out moments rather then the actual characters and their family dynamic. The coarse humor is at odds with the narrative, which tries to embrace a family feel but is shunted to the sidelines in favor of jokes touching on pedophilia, homophobia, misogyny, and racism. It’s not inflammatory enough to shock, just to leave a register in your brain that as filmgoers, we’re better than this.
Vacation is a woefully unfunny film that lumbers from one farcical situation to another without any charm or originality, failing even in it’s attempts at shock value. It ranks amongst the worst releases of the summer, relying too much on the nostalgia of the original and greatly suffering in comparison. Avoid.
Vacation is on general release from 29th July, 2015