Vacation

A film seemingly designed to prove that “really stupid” and “pretty funny” aren’t mutually exclusive assessments, Vacation is a hit-or-miss grab bag of gleefully moronic jokes whose biggest limitation is that it’s not as consistently, shamelessly idiotic as it should be. This reboot/sequel of 1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation definitely has its moments—none of which you’ll want to relate in polite company or around anyone you’re trying to impress—but they aren’t frequent or inspired enough to merit a full recommendation for tagging along on this misbegotten road trip. Vacation is the embodiment of the rental ideology: It’s funnier than you might imagine but still utterly disposable.
The film stars Ed Helms as Rusty Griswold, the kid from the original Vacation (then played by Anthony Michael Hall) who was at the mercy of his deadpan-bozo father Clark (Chevy Chase) as he packed up his family for a cross-country vacation. Now all grown up, Rusty is a pilot for a low-end airline who feels that his own family needs a little together time. Ditching their usual, predictable vacation spot out in the woods, Rusty announces they’re instead going to re-create his dad’s old car trip from Chicago to Southern California’s Walley World.
This new Vacation asserts its smart-ass credentials early on, the Griswold clan sitting around discussing Rusty’s plan to go on a “new vacation” that’s like the “old vacation,” as Rusty promises his kids they don’t have to remember the “old vacation” to enjoy the “new vacation.” The joke is both obvious and mildly clever—it’s the filmmakers’ way of acknowledging and mocking the fact that this sequel really isn’t that different than the original Vacation—which is an apt assessment of the new movie’s overall comedic strategy.
Writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (who previously collaborated on the scripts Horrible Bosses and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone) make their feature directorial debut with Vacation, copying not just the road-trip setup but also the original’s affectionate-yet-jaundiced sendup of the All-American, middle-class banality of the family vacation. The misadventures and stops along the way are different in this Vacation, but Rusty has inherited his father’s quietly desperate helplessness, that ramrod faux-confidence that everything is going great—even if the car is currently on fire.