I remember seeing this film in the theaters as a teenager and finding it a mildly diverting, if not hilarious, road movie comedy. Despite being a box office hit on its release, the reviews were largely mediocre and, reading them in retrospect, fairly on target. With the Ed Helms reboot coming out, I decided to catch it again as an adult, and I must say that the rose-colored glasses of nostalgic sentiment coupled with the gaggle of increasingly dreadful sequels, give the original Vacation a reputation of hilarity that it simply does not live up to. In fact, it has aged badly.
The simple story centers on the Griswold family (dad Chevy Chase, mom Beverly D'Angelo and siblings Anthony Michael Hall and Dana Barron) and their disaster plagued cross country road trip to Wally World. Pretty much everyone can relate to family trips, especially from childhood, that went horribly awry, which should give Vacation fertile ground to mine. Unfortunately, it too often misses the mark and ultimately wears out its welcome long before we reach the final destination.
On the plus side, the film has a fun postcards opening credits sequence paired with Lindsay Buckingham's rousing Holiday Road. Then it starts to deteriorate. A huge problem rests with the central character of Clark Griswold and the performance by Chase. Anyone is sympathetic with well-intentioned travel plans that blow up due to circumstances beyond one's control (i.e., bad accommodations, car trouble, nasty relatives, unplanned side trips, weather, etc.) and can laugh about them after the fact. Much of this should be the focus of the comedy, but very little of these are exploited in this film. Instead, the film takes the low road and too many of the "comical" moments stem from Clark being a complete imbecile. He makes choices and has reactions that few, if any, sane human beings would. To make matters worse, he is also a rather mean-spirited jerk. We can laugh and be sympathetic with a likable well-meaning guy of average intelligence running into vacation road blocks beyond his control, but it becomes less funny when the guy is actually a fairly unlikable jerk whose foolishness is often the starting point of the problems.
Also, a number of the jokes are simply not that funny and the side trips and subplots often seem little more than padding. The film also has its fair share of mean-spiritedness, which sours any good humor. Christie Brinkley makes several appearances as a hottie in a sportscar who keeps ostentatiously flirting with Chase on the road. Overlooking the fact that one cannot fathom why someone who looks like Brinkley would be wasting her time relentlessly trying to seduce a shlub like Clark with his wife sitting in full view in the passenger seat, what kind of jerk would unabashedly leer back with his rather lovely significant other present. This all culminates in a hotel swimming pool sequence that goes no where, other than to allow son Hall to give Chase a reverse father doesn't know best pep talk that rings hollow.
A side trip to visit redneck relatives, led by a criminally unfunny Randy Quaid, is fairly laughless and seems present only to pad time and saddle the Griswolds with a hated aunt (Imogene Coca) and her dog. This could have been funny, but the film is so mean-spirited that instead of some great verbal banter between comedy legend Coca and Chase (and company), we instead end up with Chase murdering her dog by tying it to the bumper and dragging it to death and then precipitating Coca's fatal heart attack and then leaving her cadaver on her son's front stoop with a note. Oh the hilarity! This might be understandable if the aunt were a character of great villainy, but other than being mildly unpleasant, she does nothing to generate this level of malevolence towards her. If there is anyone in the audience that can relate to vacation memories like this, then I suggest you move quickly away from them and make for the exits.
Chase's performance clumsily lurches between abject stupidity and meanness. D'Angelo, stuck in the stereotypical long-suffering wife straight man role (are there any other kinds in these comedies), acquits herself well despite having so few notes to play. Hall keeps trying to find something to do with his role long after the writers have given up. He has it made compared to Barron, who only gets a few reaction shots and nothing funny. Apparently, women need to play it straight and only guys can be funny. Coca seems game, but she is only on hand for a nasty gag at her expense.
By the time the Griswolds do get to Wally World, the viewer is exhausted and not from laughing. The film has long since run out of gas. It has seemed like an endless trip and shortly after departure has ceased to resemble anything like a funny disastrous road trip that friends or family would regale you with. Truly, at least 20 minutes or so could be cut from the film to its benefit. This mediocre film was followed by the even worse European Vacation and Vegas Vacation, and a barely tolerable step up from those with Christmas Vacation.
The simple story centers on the Griswold family (dad Chevy Chase, mom Beverly D'Angelo and siblings Anthony Michael Hall and Dana Barron) and their disaster plagued cross country road trip to Wally World. Pretty much everyone can relate to family trips, especially from childhood, that went horribly awry, which should give Vacation fertile ground to mine. Unfortunately, it too often misses the mark and ultimately wears out its welcome long before we reach the final destination.
On the plus side, the film has a fun postcards opening credits sequence paired with Lindsay Buckingham's rousing Holiday Road. Then it starts to deteriorate. A huge problem rests with the central character of Clark Griswold and the performance by Chase. Anyone is sympathetic with well-intentioned travel plans that blow up due to circumstances beyond one's control (i.e., bad accommodations, car trouble, nasty relatives, unplanned side trips, weather, etc.) and can laugh about them after the fact. Much of this should be the focus of the comedy, but very little of these are exploited in this film. Instead, the film takes the low road and too many of the "comical" moments stem from Clark being a complete imbecile. He makes choices and has reactions that few, if any, sane human beings would. To make matters worse, he is also a rather mean-spirited jerk. We can laugh and be sympathetic with a likable well-meaning guy of average intelligence running into vacation road blocks beyond his control, but it becomes less funny when the guy is actually a fairly unlikable jerk whose foolishness is often the starting point of the problems.
Also, a number of the jokes are simply not that funny and the side trips and subplots often seem little more than padding. The film also has its fair share of mean-spiritedness, which sours any good humor. Christie Brinkley makes several appearances as a hottie in a sportscar who keeps ostentatiously flirting with Chase on the road. Overlooking the fact that one cannot fathom why someone who looks like Brinkley would be wasting her time relentlessly trying to seduce a shlub like Clark with his wife sitting in full view in the passenger seat, what kind of jerk would unabashedly leer back with his rather lovely significant other present. This all culminates in a hotel swimming pool sequence that goes no where, other than to allow son Hall to give Chase a reverse father doesn't know best pep talk that rings hollow.
A side trip to visit redneck relatives, led by a criminally unfunny Randy Quaid, is fairly laughless and seems present only to pad time and saddle the Griswolds with a hated aunt (Imogene Coca) and her dog. This could have been funny, but the film is so mean-spirited that instead of some great verbal banter between comedy legend Coca and Chase (and company), we instead end up with Chase murdering her dog by tying it to the bumper and dragging it to death and then precipitating Coca's fatal heart attack and then leaving her cadaver on her son's front stoop with a note. Oh the hilarity! This might be understandable if the aunt were a character of great villainy, but other than being mildly unpleasant, she does nothing to generate this level of malevolence towards her. If there is anyone in the audience that can relate to vacation memories like this, then I suggest you move quickly away from them and make for the exits.
Chase's performance clumsily lurches between abject stupidity and meanness. D'Angelo, stuck in the stereotypical long-suffering wife straight man role (are there any other kinds in these comedies), acquits herself well despite having so few notes to play. Hall keeps trying to find something to do with his role long after the writers have given up. He has it made compared to Barron, who only gets a few reaction shots and nothing funny. Apparently, women need to play it straight and only guys can be funny. Coca seems game, but she is only on hand for a nasty gag at her expense.
By the time the Griswolds do get to Wally World, the viewer is exhausted and not from laughing. The film has long since run out of gas. It has seemed like an endless trip and shortly after departure has ceased to resemble anything like a funny disastrous road trip that friends or family would regale you with. Truly, at least 20 minutes or so could be cut from the film to its benefit. This mediocre film was followed by the even worse European Vacation and Vegas Vacation, and a barely tolerable step up from those with Christmas Vacation.