The National Lampoon Vacation Series
Film reviews by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1996 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) *** (out of four)
For my money (and I don't have much now... but I will. I will! Ha Ha Ha!!! ...Sorry, I was having another mad scientist episode. Won't happen again.) this is the best of the NATIONAL LAMPOON movies (yes, even better than the Corey Haim-Corey Feldman team-up LAST RESORT), the best Chevy Chase movie and the best in the travelogue genre. VACATION is h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s (that spells "funny") and also features a skinny-dipping scene with Christie Brinkley.
Chase plays bumbling family-man Clark W. Griswold, who has planned out a cross-country vacation to Walley World (a Disney World knock-off, to be sure). But once they get on the open road, the Griswold family finds out everything that can go wrong will (Murphy Brown's law, right?). Their hubcaps are stolen in East St. Louis (Good thing they didn't stop off at McCluer High School), they get lost in the desert, their redneck relatives have them take nasty old Aunt Edna with them, Aunt Edna dies in the car. Or was that my family's summer road trip of 1992? Either way, VACATION is a definitive 80's comedy you should definitely take a look at (or you could watch it).
National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) *1/2
This is the worst of the VACATION movies, though it wasn't as bad this time around as I remembered it. It is incredibly mediocre, though, with very few laughs. Chase's trademark bumbling becomes more annoying than amusing here, and the casting choices for the two kids in this movie seem particularly bad. Sure, there was no way to effectively replace Anothony Michael-Hall, who had moved on to bigger and better things (if you don't count JOHNNY BE GOOD) since his 1983 role as Russ in the first VACATION, but could they have found a worse replacement for the daughter, Audrey, than the repulsive porker who appears in this sequel? I don't mean to be insensitive, but what point is there in casting an overweight teenager for a role as a girl obsessed with staying thin, other than flat-out irony (which is never even hinted at through the course of the movie)?
The Griswolds win an all-expenses-paid vacation to Europe (a European vacation, you could say) on the game show "Pig in a Poke" (perhaps another subtle reference to the fat daughter?) and, as we've seen so many times before, everything goes wrong. Only this time it's not funny.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) ***
The VACATION crew redeems themselves here after the dreadful EUROPEAN VACATION with a movie that's actually funny. And maybe I like this one more because they recast the kids yet again, which brings up an interesting point. In VACATION (1983), Russ, the male son, looked about fifteen while Audrey, the female son--er, daughter--looked twelve. Then, in EUROPEAN VACATION (1985), Russ looked thirteen while Audrey looked fifteen. Now, in CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989), Russ looks eleven and Audrey looks fifteen. What are we to make of a family whose daughter has stopped aging and son has had his aging process reversed? I just don't know. I don't have the answer to that question. I only printed this in the hopes that maybe one day somebody would read this review and explain the mystery of the VACATION kids to me so I can sleep again.
This is the only VACATION movie that isn't a travelogue. Instead, every relative in the Griswold family gathers at Clark's (Chevy Chase) house for Christmas and--as always--pandemonium ensues. Thankfully, this sequel is well-written and funny, very much unlike EUROPEAN VACATION, and includes every Christmas scenario imaginable, including Chase hanging 5,000 lights outside his house and the cat getting electrocuted by the Christmas tree. It's good in December, sure, but I watched it in May and still enjoyed it. See if you can say _that_ about IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Well, maybe you can, but try saying it three times fast.
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