We follow the troubles and misadventures of a now grown up Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) who is a low level continental pilot to support his family life back at home with his wife Debbie Griswold (Christina Applegate) and his two sons starting with the older brother James (Skyler Gisondo) and younger one Kevin (Steele Stebbins). Their lives have become dull at home as well as their trips to the cabin along with the disconnection that Rusty feels from his wife and boys. So he decides to shake up their vacation time by going to the revamped Walley World that he went to 30 years ago with his father Clark (Chevy Chase), mother Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) and his sister Audrey (Leslie Mann). This simple little trip becomes a landmine of misfortunes and wackiness that has the Griswold family go through state to state on a road trip to make this a vacation to remember for better or worse.
That was the main plot and if you have noticed, it is literally the original film set in modern times now and with more low brow crass / sex jokes than you can wash on you when the humor wasn’t about that and more about the crazy, ridiculous misfortunes the family dealt with on the road which is where the original film is still looked upon fondly and has good comedic talent as well as timing to its writing and direction. This “remake” has none of that and really lays it thick with the gross out humor to hide its bland, thin structure of the plot together for 90 minutes. The characters are unlikable, moronic stereotypes of the genre and parodies as well with pointless, shoehorned cameos thrown in to get some humor from the types of characters/personalities these actors played in other films/shows that reeks of desperation. Even the climax of the story really feels like a non-event and just feels uninspired to have nothing more than a beatdown with the characters that is literally unfunny and dumb to the extreme. There is a vague sense of a plot but none that comes through as interesting since it is to service its “funny” gags throughout its run-time.
Seeing as it is a comedy, this section will look at the theme of the jokes, how it was executed, and whether it is funny or not so we start with what did work. The actors were game at least with the humor and it seem like they were doing their best to make it work so some kudos is deserved more or less. There are some pretty clever humorous visual gags that did get a chuckle out of me (car function jokes as examples) as well as “some” of the nostalgia, meta humor that reared its head in throughout the film at times. However, the majority of the humor is (it will get offensive now so see this line as a warning in advance) dick, poo, vomit, and sex both legal and illegal jokes throughout its run-time. In fact, this is about as raunchy as it gets with a comedy film that it makes the original films look quaint by comparisons. So if you are not a fan of low brow humor to the extreme degree, this is going to really not click with you which is what I noticed as I saw the same joke get thrown in and beaten over the head repeatedly for 3-5 minutes straight to illicit some kind of laughter no matter how minor or huge it may be (This film makes a ton of dick jokes, so yes that gives me a freebie!). It just reeks of desperation and lack of creative objective as to the point of this humor to the story which is why it felt very dull by the time they hit the road and the jokes were littered with low brow content that kept getting hammered into us over and over again.
It seems there need to be examples of these jokes to get an idea of what to expect but be forewarned, it will get a bit offensive and gratuitously crude in this section. There is a joke they beat into the ground with the beginning of the film where Rusty argues with his sons about the young Kevin calling James a pussy by writing Vagina on his guitar followed by Rusty countering this with his writing Penis on top of the crossed out Vagina. It gets even better with mutilation jokes as they meet up with Audrey and her husband Texan cattle rancher/weatherman Stone Crandall (Chris Hemsworth) as well as him flexing his muscle and huge package down below for 3-5 minutes straight. There is also a lovely pedophile jokes throughout as well as puking jokes from a fraternity sequence that was grotesque and just meh. Yeah, these are the kinds of jokes you have throughout the entire film.
So what you are left with are characters that are quite unlikeable, humor with the sensibilities of a juvenile delinquent, and does not attempt to make this vacation unique as it utilizes the original film’s main plot with some variations that fail to really be funny or seem to not be well thought out in the direction/scripting process. It feels about as torturous as it gets with this vacation road trip and that’s a shame since it had a reliably funny cast members in the lead and the actors including the cameo ones were game to poke fun at the concept and themselves but those moments are very few in between the excessive use of crude humor to hide their inability to be witty or charmingly smart with their writing. These are the same guys in charge of writing Spider-Man too so that should be some cause of concern if this is the kind of writing we can expect from them in that film.
Vacation is a cruder, brutally violent film that beats the very core meaning of the word “Comedy” to death with its disgusting dick, balls, and vomit jokes as well as lacking any of the original film’s charm, innocently humorous take on the zany, weird events that occur on a road trip with your family. This film reeks of being nothing more than a cash grab reboot to get an old property back from limbo but it suffers from the same issues as other 80’s films being revived. It has nothing new to say in its execution of those same ideas and themes which has to really stop but as long as it makes money, then this trend will continue until another collapse occurs with this industry. This is one vacation you should save your money on and just watch the original film, you will have more fun and it happens to be creative with tremendous amount of effort put into it than what the creative hacks of this sequel/remake put into their attempt to revive it.
Score: ** out of *****
Vacation is a clear representation of what is clearly wrong with modern day comedies today in the film industry. Morally bankrupted in creativity and skills behind/front of the camera as well as feeling like a slog to get through pacing wise due to the over-reliance on the crude humor to carry a thin structure of the story. There is nothing else I can write but state that this film will only appeal to the lowest common denominator of audience who can find humor in childish, crude jokes for 90 minutes straight. Hence the reason the score is that high because there is a clear effort from the actors to bring out the funny qualities of the script but lacks a satisfying execution due to the terrible script and weak, inexperience direction from first timers. For Marvel fans, be very concern that these guys are going to be in charge of writing Spider-Man for 2017.
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