Movie review: ‘Vacation’ is back from an extended vacation

There will be people who argue with me over the idea that I believe “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” released at the end of July in 1983, is an overrated, unfunny movie (with, yes, some good comic moments) that has somehow registered in the minds of many moviegoers as some sort of classic. Now let me buffer that statement. It was ripe for a remake. And the remake is better than the original.

But it’s not really a remake, or even a reboot. True, it’s about the Griswold family, and their cross-country road trip to an amusement park, and the comic hassles they encounter. But they don’t make that trip in a modified Country Squire station wagon (though one does make a cameo in this film), and it’s not Chevy Chase behind the wheel and Beverly D’Angelo in the passenger seat, with two kids in the back. Instead this is the story of one of those kids, Rusty (originally played by Anthony Michael Hall), now all grown up and played by Ed Helms, taking his wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) and their two kids, James and Kevin, across the U.S. of A. because Rusty recalls that long-ago visit to Walley World as “the best time I ever had as a kid.”

Maybe Rusty’s memory is a little, ummm, rusty. But, hey, he’s a nice fellow, he’s trying to be a good husband and dad, and what the heck, let’s hop in the tiny new rented car – it’s called an Albanian Tartan Prancer, it inexplicably has two gas tanks, and its GPS system gets stuck in “shouting Korean” mode – and head West from Chicago.

There’s no use continually comparing the 2015 “Vacation” to the original or any of its three sequels. This one is consistently funnier, more clever, and even with the combination of plight after plight and gag after gag, it features this little thing called character development. Some of it works very well. For instance, there’s an exploration and understanding of the relationship between Rusty and Debbie, partners in a marriage that’s cooled off over the years and needs some recharging. But other parts overstay their welcome. A specific one is the storyline of younger brother Kevin being a foul-mouthed bully toward older brother James. It’s kind of funny the first couple of times (though the bullying is overt and unnecessary), but the script keeps returning to that misbehavior ad nauseam, and the laughs stop.

What every fan of road trip movies knows is that a good one needs good characters along the way. “Vacation” has plenty, from the young co-eds encountered during a stop at Debbie’s alma mater (a place where she earned quite the reputation, one she hadn’t bothered to share with Rusty), to a visit with Rusty’s sister Audrey (Leslie Mann) and her husband Stone (a swaggering, self-deprecatingly hilarious Chris Hemsworth, who, in the film’s money shot, gets to parade around wearing just his absurdly tight undies).

The writing-directing team of John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein infuse the film with sight gags, some of which move the plot forward, some of which are there simply because they thought they’d be funny (and they are!). There are adventures in white water rafting, a segment that could be nicknamed “Cops Gone Wild,” lessons to be learned about dealing with tumbleweed in the desert and, believe it or not, a somewhat serious scene where Rusty feels that the trip might have been a mistake.

But that kind of mood is dispensed with quickly by cameos from Chevy Chase (still making a living as an actor who bumbles around) and Beverly D’Angelo, and jokes about people ranging from Mitt Romney to Bob Dylan to Jimi Hendrix.

Do the Griswolds make it to Walley World? You bet! Was the trip worth it? You’ll have to decide. Do I ever again want to hear Seal’s song “Kiss from a Rose,” which is regularly sung along to by Rusty? No, thank you!

Ed Symkus covers movies for More Content Now.

VACATION

Written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein

With Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins

Rated R