Plan an alternate trip

VACATION (2015)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I have to admit, I laughed three or four times while watching this sequel/reboot of "Vacation." That is already more times than I laughed during 1997's very unfortunate "Vegas Vacation," meaning I did not laugh at all at that abomination. However, despite two appealing central performances from Ed Helms and Christina Applegate, the whole movie smacks of being wanting and rather desperate. Some astonishingly crude scenes will leave a sour taste in your mouth (which reminds me that anything bloody usually works better in Monty Python country).

Ed Helms is Rusty Griswold, the eldest son of the Griswold clan, who is taking his family on a vacation to Walley World. That is the reboot subplot of the movie; as you will recall, it was the Griswolds' destination in the 1983 film with Chevy Chase. The rest of the film is the actual trip with Rusty's increasingly bored wife (Christina Applegate) who is looking for a new spin on vacation locations that do not include the same-old log cabin. Some of this is slightly hysterical, such as Applegate's Mama Griswold proving that she can physically compete with the new alma mater sorority girls. I also enjoyed the consistently malfunctioning Albanian car that Papa Griswold drives (it even has a Swastika button in the remote). But the movie cheapens itself with gags that never amount to much of a payoff. The reprise of the famous Christine Brinkley-flashing-her-smile-while-driving scene from the 1983 original ends in a nasty collision (occurs offscreen). When the clan takes a dip in a presumably hot spring, it turns out to be raw sewage. When Papa Griswold tries to impress Mama by driving a scooter, he plows into a cow and let's say bovine intestines fill the screen in a scene that would even make Quentin Tarantino vomit. Speaking of vomiting, Mama Griswold vomits at a college sorority, trying to show the girls who is boss. Yuk.

This "Vacation" movie is full of excessive gross gags with nary a trace of humor. Accidentally killing a cow, for example, is presented as the "joke." Consider the original 1983 film where a dog's leash was left tied to the stationwagon's bumper. The joke is when the patrolman pulls Chevy Chase's Clark Griswold over and tells him how horrifying this accident and death of a dog is while holding a leash (the dog is never seen again). Clark doesn't quite see it the same way and stops himself from smirking. Okay, admittedly it is not hilarious but it has some measure of drollness along with empathy for an animal.

Aside from three or four laughs and a couple of chuckles about Chris Hemsworth's huge member, nothing in this "Vacation" is likely to be reminisced thirty years from now despite the talents of Ed Helms and Christina Applegate who deserve a richer vehicle than this old, dusted off revisit. Plan an alternate trip.