Vacation

Dir: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

2015

*

I'm not going to say that no film or television series should ever be remade or re-envisioned but I would argue that most should be left alone - particularly the ones people are most fond of. Looking back at the original National Lampoon Vacation films, it's really only the first two that are great, the Christmas vacation was okay but the Las Vegas episode rightfully marked the end of the original series although  original fans might be shocked and rightfully disgusted to learn that a sequel to Christmas vacation exists staring none of the original cast. If I'm going to be brutality honest, the first two films are no masterpiece but they are of their time. I adore them and will happily sit and watch them again and again, but I would totally understand why younger persons wouldn't have much enthusiasm for them. Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo made a fourteen minute short film in 2010 called Hotel Hell Vacation that saw them reprise their roles as Mr and Mrs Griswold but it was made for commercial purposes. It was the final sell-out but still a million times better than this 2015 reworking. Technically Vacation is a direct sequel as it features the original Griswold family and stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo once more, although in cameo performances. The main story follows their son Rusty, played here by Ed Helms. Rusty has been played by a different actor in each film, as has his sister Audrey, so real only Chase and D'Angelo count as far as original characters go. No problem there. The family go on a road trip where everything goes wrong - again, as it should. The real problem with this new version of the classic concept, is that it isn't in the least bit funny. A lot of time, money and effort has gone into many jokes that are either dreadfully predictable, seriously unfunny or just fall totally flat. Not just that, most of the laughs are actually annoying, too inane to even be considered offensive. Gross-out humour has been done to death and its been done better. The script is beyond toleration and it really feels like the film has been written by absolute morons. For example, the Griswold's head off at the beginning of their long road trip in a rented car. I'm not sure why they rented a car instead of driving their own but fine. Rusty explains that the car is all he could get on short notice during the holiday season and continues to show his family round the fictional Albanian SUV called the Tartan Prancer. The car looks like it was designed by Homer Simpson and does many strange things that most cars don't - none of them particularly funny. So a huge part of the budget went on this unfunny fictional car. Someone actually built this car and spent time on making it look vaguely real, only for it to be used in the most unfunny way possible. If you have to invent something that doesn't exist in order to make up jokes about it then I would argue that you're not much of a comedy writer. The fact that the film has two directors should be the first sign that this film isn't up to much.The original films were comedies that families could watch and also relate to, but this version makes no sense and has no place in the modern world. Kids swearing isn't very funny, awkward humour needs a good writer and better performers and Albania isn't a particularly funny country. We've seen it all before, many times, and it wasn't that great then. However, this has got to be one of the worst. The appearance of Chase and D'Angelo towards the end of the film is far from the pleasant surprise either, quite the opposite. D'Angelo is given a few second of screen time and Chase is heart-breakingly unfunny. This film needs to be drowned, burned and buried in concreate.