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Review: Vacation

Review: Vacation

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Starring Ed Helms and Christina Applegate, Vacation is the type of film you’re dragged to by a significant other. Or by someone who finds Two and a Half Men funny. Or it’s the movie you settle for because you arrived late and missed the start of the one you actually wanted to see. That’s how these productions make any money; human error. In all sense of the word.
Inspired by the original 80s flick of the same name, Vacation follows the Griswold family as they trek thousands of miles from their home to a theme park called Walley World in a car that looks like a blue fridge. Husband Rusty (Helms), who is the son of original Griswold Clark (Chevy Chase), just wants to spend some quality time with his wife Debbie (Applegate) and kids James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins). However, he’s the only one.

Gisondo, playing awkward teenager James and Stebbins as Kevin are both good in their roles, although the usually funny Helms and Applegate falter as their parents. A lot of the time it seemed that Helms had accidentally walked onto the wrong set and this feeling of confusion and general sloppiness continued throughout, almost as a theme. This film represents the exact life Andy from The Office (Helms) would have if he ever got married and had kids, right down to the random singing and delusion. This is not a good thing.

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Devoid of laughs other than a few sparse scenes (including a genuinely funny exchange at the border of four states), Vacation is full of the kind of tired and tasteless tropes one would expect from the Wayans brothers for the next Scary Movie flop. Covering everything from cringe-worthy and explicit sexual references, to foul-mouthed children, rim jobs, projectile vomiting and, for some reason, cow cannibalism, this story really scraped the bottom of the remake barrel.

Something I really disliked, and I’m beginning to see it more and more in films, was the addition of yet another young character who shoots their mouth off and says all manner of foul things for so-called ‘comedic relief’. At this stage, a sassy child with a potty mouth has become as much a film stereotype as a bumbling fat person or a wise old Asian mentor. In this case, the character of Kevin took it one step further by acting in a borderline sociopathic way by trying to choke his brother to death on two occasions. With a plastic bag.

One of the better aspects of the movie involved James, who was infatuated with a girl I was convinced was a figment of his imagination. His whole ‘puppy love’ story line, although amusing at times, didn’t even end; we just never saw the girl again after an inconclusive scene, so Screen Shot 2015-08-17 at 16.03.46perhaps the kid was just going a bit mental. Probably from all the air loss after the second or third time Kevin attacked him.

It seems a lot of the issues in the film could’ve been solved if Debbie had just communicated with her husband about how bad all of his ideas were. Then again, that’s the case with the original as well, but the difference is that National Lampoon’s Vacation had heart and wit with endearing and genuine family scenes, whereas Vacation was one flat joke after another as the family got themselves into steadily more ridiculous scenarios culminating in the accidental suicide of a grieving park ranger. Think that was a random sentence? Try watching it play out on-screen!

Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead) makes a brief cameo as a creepy truck driver who just may have been both a rapist and a paedophile; it’s hard to tell, as the joke hinting at both of those things hung in the air like a bad smell. Easily forgettable, every scene with the truck and its corresponding ‘ominous’ music could’ve been cut and it wouldn’t have made a difference to the final film.

The saving grace of this utterly mediocre movie was Chris Hemsworth as an eccentric and misogynistic weatherman called Stone who is married to Rusty’s sister, Audrey. With a southern drawl and a walk that made him look like he desperately needed a wee, Hemsworth only has about 5 minutes of screen time in total, but he owns them.

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As well as that, the original Griswolds from National Lampoon’s Vacation, Clark (Chevy Chase) and Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), appeared near the end of the film. It was nice to see them on-screen and in their short few scenes they demonstrated the charming, dorky comedy I wish had been utilised more by the writers. You don’t need to resort to shock value and toilet humour (literally, in one particularly disturbing sewage scene) to make a funny movie.

I couldn’t see anyone else’s face in the audience, but I imagine we all collectively looked akin to an embarrassed panel of judges after listening to some sequin-clad weirdo claiming they can sing ‘just like Beyonce’. The whole movie was one long cringe-fest, so anyone who physically cannot look at the screen when something embarrassing and ridiculous happens should avoid avoid avoid.

Ultimately, this isn’t a good film. It’s not even an okay film. It’s just awful. Even with the nostalgia factor, I’d have to be hit on the head with a sock full of rocks to write a good review for Vacation; either that or be offered a big fat cheque as a bribe.

Stale humour and some genuinely gross scenes – give it a miss.

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