Vacation (2015) review

In September of 1979, humor magazine National Lampoon published a short story by iconic 80’s film director John Hughes titled “Vacation ‘58” which was inspired by a family trip that he had taken with his family when he was younger to Disneyland. Four years later, Harold Ramis directed a film written by Hughes based on his original short story. Starring Chevy Chase as the enthusiastic but borderline crazy Clark Griswold, who embarks a series of misadventures with his wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) and their two kids, Rusty and Audrey, as they take a cross-country trip to California to visit the theme park Walley World, ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’ became one of the most famous comedies of the decade, spawning a full franchise of films starring Chase, D’Angelo, and continuously changing actors/actresses in the roles of Rusty and Audrey. While both the immediate follow-up ‘European Vacation’ and the 1997 sequel ‘Vegas Vacation’ weren’t as well liked by critics and audiences, the 1989 entry ‘Christmas Vacation’ is now considered as a modern holiday classic. Almost two whole decades after the last official ‘Vacation’ film, the series returns again with a brand new film simply titled ‘Vacation’. Though for the record it is not a remake of the original film, even though it does share the same primary plot. Instead, it is a sequel that now centers on a grown-up Rusty Griswold as he goes on the same road trip that he took with his family 30 years ago. The end result is a solidly funny comedy that pays homage to the legacy of the franchise while also doing its own thing as a ‘modern update’. 

30 years after the events of the original ‘Vacation’, Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) has become a pilot for a low-rated airline company and has raised a family of his own, living in Chicago with his wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) and their two sons James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins). Recognizing that the family has become rather dysfunctional, to the point where younger brother Kevin constantly bullies his older brother James, Rusty decides against the idea of the family going on the same trip to their cabin in Sheboygan, Wisconsin that they had been taking every year around this time. Instead, he decides to take them on the same cross-country road trip that he had taken with his parents Clark and Ellen (Chase and D’Angelo reprise their roles in cameo appearances) and sister Audrey (played here by Leslie Mann) 30 years earlier to Walley World in California. Taking off in their new rental car, the Tartan Prancer (the ‘Honda of Albania’), Rusty and his family begin their cross-country road-trip to Walley World, which Rusty hopes will allow the family to reconnect. However, just like that original Vacation that he took with his family back when he was a kid, what is intended to be a nice little family road trip ends up becoming a nightmare as Rusty and his family end up in a series of misadventures on the long journey to Walley World.

Even as a film that follows the same plot of the original ‘Vacation’ film from 1983, which of course results in a few meta jokes including the one from the trailer in which Rusty declares that ‘the new Vacation will stand on its own’, this new ‘Vacation’ film actually does manage to stand on its own by not following the exact same beats of the original. Of course, being a part of this long-running franchise, there are obviously a few callbacks to the original, from the use of the iconic tune ‘Holiday Road’ to even an appearance by the classic Family Truckster station wagon. But on a positive note, they don’t overshadow the film at all and are pretty subtle in terms of execution. As far as the humor is concerned, overall I’d say that it’s a pretty darn funny film. No, not every single joke hit but there are definitely quite a few major ‘laugh-out-loud’ moments in the film, from the opening credits (and the beginning of the end credits) in which we see much more than one would expect out of seemingly nice family vacation pictures to a fight sequence right at the end of the film involving the Griswolds and the family of a rival pilot (Ron Livingston). Compared to the original film which, while rated R, is fairly tame by today’s standards, this ‘Vacation’ opts for much raunchier humor but even then there have been comedies that have been far raunchier than this one. In other words, this new ‘Vacation’, like the original, is actually rather tame by today’s standards.   

  

Obviously Chevy Chase was one of the key elements that made the previous ‘Vacation’ films so successful. Sure at the end of the day, Clark Griswold may have been a womanizer and a bit of an asshole but his unnerving optimism even in the face of extreme adversity actually managed to make him rather charming and relatable. Ed Helms is a solid successor to Chase in the lead role of Rusty as he carries the same confident and optimistic attitude of his father to a fault. And considering that Rusty isn’t a womanizer like his father, he’s also arguably the more likable lead. Helms has great chemistry with Christina Applegate, who also gets some really hilarious material to work with, primarily when it comes to the reveal that Debbie used to live a wild lifestyle during her college years. Both of their sons are also great as well, especially Steele Stebbins as younger brother Kevin in a rare case where the younger brother is the one bullying the older brother and not the other way around. And of course, like any ‘Vacation’ film, there are also some extremely memorable cameos. The most notable is ‘Thor’ AKA Chris Hemsworth as Stone Crandall, the husband of Audrey (Leslie Mann is unfortunately underused here despite being in the role of one of the series’ main characters) who of course loves to show off his six-pack abs. And of course, this wouldn’t be a ‘Vacation’ film without a cameo by Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo as Clark and Ellen Griswold.  

‘Vacation’ may carry the same plotline of its 1983 predecessor but it is not a remake and because of that, it is able to do its own thing and it does that quite well. This film may currently only carry a 28% on Rotten Tomatoes (which certainly means that you’re going to be hearing a lot of fanboys on the internet complain about how the directors, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, are slated to write the screenplay for the next ‘Spider-Man’ film) but I thought that it was pretty darn funny. No I don’t think that it’s the best comedy of the year but as someone who may not have grown up with the franchise but likes both the original ‘Vacation’ and ‘Christmas Vacation’, I think that this film is a worthy successor to those films and continues the franchise’s tradition of celebrating both family and Americana even amidst some of the more mean-spirited bits of humor. And on that note, yes the humor can be quite raunchy at times so it’s not for everyone. But ultimately I thought that it worked out fine here and it isn’t even that overt when compared to some of the other R-rated comedies that have come out over the years. If you’re a fan of any of the other ‘Vacation’ films, then you’re definitely going to like this new film that continues the tradition of having the Griswold family go through all sorts of chaotic misadventures on what were just meant to be simple family vacations. They may be going through all sorts of hell on-screen but for us, the audience, it’s another fun little trip on the ‘Holiday Road’.  

Rating: 4/5