If you enjoyed the audacious
“Hangover” movie trilogy and the two impudent “Horrible Bosses” epics, then you
will probably hoot at the reboot of the vintage
Chevy Chase comedy “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” Not only does the new “Vacation” (***1/2 OUT
OF ****) qualify as a remake, but it also serves as a sequel to the four film “National
Lampoon’s Vacation” franchise. Ed
Helms stars as Clark W. Griswold’s grown-up son Russell ‘Rusty’ Griswold.
For the record, Anthony Michael Hall played Rusty in “National Lampoon’s
Vacation” (1983) while different actors have slipped into and out of the same role
in the various other “Vacation” inspired sequels. Anyway, Helms plays Rusty as a married man,
with a wife, Debbie (sexy Christina Applegate), and two sons, James (Skyler
Gisondo) and Kevin Griswold (Steele Stebbins). Comparatively, Clark raised a son and a
daughter. The basic premise remains
similar despite the 32 year gap between the movies. Oblivious Russell cherishes fond memories of
the catastrophic cross-country road-trip that his quixotic father charted for
the family and its farcical finale at Walley World. Indeed, much of the same thing occurs
again. Co-directors John Francis
Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, who wrote both “Horrible Bosses” comedies,
have ratcheted up the raunch content considerably for bigger, more brazen
laughs that may either alienate or engross audiences depending on individual
prudery. Incongruity is the cornerstone of great comedy, and “Vacation”
delivers laughs and gags galore that more often than not ridicule the
characters with whom we are supposed to identify. Actually, Ed Helms, who
endured no end of ignominy in the depraved “Hangover” movies, emerges from
“Vacation” looking reasonably respectable. “Thor’s” Chris Hemsworth has a field
day poking fun at his protruberant masculinity. Happily, as if to bestow their seal of
approval on this side-splitting sequel, Chevy Chase appears in a cameo as a bed
and breakfast owner with Beverly D'Angelo reprising her role as his wife Ellen.
As the action unfolds, Rusty flies
passenger jets for a regional airline, Econo-Air, and the plane that he is
flying nearly crashes because his elderly co-pilot Harry (David Clennon) has no
business in the cockpit. Ironically, Rusty recommended Harry for the
position, so it’s Rusty’s inadvertent fault that Harry is flying. Meantime, Rusty overhears a little boy who aspires
to be an aviator. Naturally, Rusty
strolls over to speak to the child. No sooner has Rusty started chatting with the
family than Harry ascends the jet to a higher altitude. The turbulence that the plane encounters is
violent enough to send Rusty sprawling involuntarily toward the mother. Rusty winds up groping the wife’s breasts to
keep from landing in her lap. An
uneasy silence ensues before another bout of turbulence propels him face down
onto the little boy while his thumb plunges into the father’s mouth. No matter what Rusty sets out to do, well-intentioned
or otherwise, his actions precipitate the worst possible consequences. For example, like Clark, who got stuck in the
original “Vacation” with the metallic pea-green "Wagon Queen Family
Truckster," Rusty rents a hideous, baby-blue mini-cruiser christened the
"Tartan Prancer." According to Rusty, this vehicle is the "Honda
of Albania." Idiotically enough,
this outlandish car features four exterior mirrors; the outside rear view
mirrors block the front mirrors. During
the excursion, Russell discovers a swivel seat control at the worst
moment. Later, the vehicle’s
on-board navigation system scares them when the voice howls directions in native
Japanese. Again, like his
impractical father Clark, Rusty wants to do more than just motor across America. He wants his family to experience the scenic
beauties along the way. They stop at a crowded, Hot Springs National Park,
and an unsavory yokel suggests they take advantage of a less traveled road to a
private hot springs. Little do our
gullible heroes know this local is setting them up for mischief. Moreover, the gorgeous looking hot springs
that the Griswolds splash into turns out to be a raw sewage pit. Murphy’s Law governs everything that
Griswolds set out to achieve. Nevertheless,
each of these encounters is hopelessly hilarious, although you’d hate to find
yourself in similar circumstances. A Grand Canyon water-rafting guide (Charlie
Day) gets a phone call from his fiancée who decides to dump him. After
the Griswolds set out on the river, their suicidal guide alters course for
rougher waters that terminate in a waterfall. At another juncture in their journey, Rusty
lets Debbie visit her Memphis, Tennessee, college alma mater where he discovers
she slept with 30 or more guys before they got married. Of course,
anybody who saw the original “Vacation” should remember Christie Brinkley’s
cinematic debut as a blond in a red convertible Ferrari. Writer/directors John Francis Daley and
Jonathan M. Goldstein dream up a different spin involving this character. Chris Helmsworth and Leslie Mann show up for
a couple scenes. Mann is cast as Rusty’s
sister Audrey, and she is married to egotistical television weather meteorologist
Stone Crandall (Chris Helmsworth) who herds cattle on a four-wheeler when he
isn’t forecasting the weather. Audrey
and Stone have been far more successful than Rusty and Debbie. Crandall loves to show off his physique, and
there is a zesty scene when he barges into Rusty and Debbie’s bedroom. One of the funniest moments takes place when
Stone introduces the Griswolds to his prize steer that craves ribs. Indeed, cannibalistic cattle are another offbeat
element in this opus.
Sure, “Vacation” is both infantile
and scatological, but the fearless cast maintains straight faces throughout the
hokum no matter how grotesque things get. All too often in lesser comedies, the cast
behaves as if they are in on the jokes. Admirably, neither Ed Helms nor Christine
Applegate lets on that either know how hopelessly nonsensical their exploits
are. Applegate smears feces all
over her face like a veritable mask and then remarks how abominable it smells
until she realizes her folly. Helms
discovers that he has a severed ear attached to his own ear. The camera pulls back to reveal a sign with
the inscription: Warning Raw Sewage Pit. Furthermore, our heroes cruise for
miles without realizing that pranksters have defaced one side of their Prancer
with a humongous phallic symbol. When
Rusty and Debbie realize that they have a pornographic image on their car, they
spit on their hands and struggle futilely to remove it with vigorous scrubbing
motions, groaning emphatically with their exertions. No, you shouldn’t take their children to see
“Vacation,” but the Chevy Chase original had some objectionable scenes that
weren’t fit for young eyes and delicate minds to witness, too. Clearly, freshman directors John Francis Daley
and Jonathan M. Goldstein have designed their updated adaptation of “Vacation”
for audiences that love to laugh out loud and keep on laughing out loud at blatantly
vulgar antics that leave little to the imagination. If you like to laugh hard and often and you
don’t mind a little mean-spirited humor, see “Vacation.” Incidentally, the photographs that appear
during the end credits are creatively shown in halves. For example, we see the Grand Canyon water
rafting guide in one half of the panel and then the other half of the panel
dissolves to show a gigantic Grizzly Bear menacing him. The final shot of Chris Hemsworth displaying
the tip of Thor’s hammer may amuse the women who sit through those end credits.
