Review: Vacation (2015)

Don’t you just hate it when a trailer spoils important stuff from a movie you haven’t even seen yet? I know I do. It’s a movie epidemic that is sweeping all movie studios, for some reason they now believe that it’s cool to give away the movie. In Vacation’s case it’s not that they give away the movie, it’s just that they give away the only three funny scenes of the movie in the trailer.

So Vacation is both written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein and serves as both a reboot and a sequel to the original series from the 80’s and 90’s starring Chevy Chase. Now I’ll be honest here, I’m a big fan of the Vacation series. The first and third ones are comedy classics in my eyes and I don’t particularly mind the bad ones either so I guess I was looking forward to this reboot.

Man, was I letdown.

So the reboot which is set in present day follows the story of Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) who is all grown up and works as an airline pilot now. Rusty still reminisces about the time his dad took the entire family to Walley World and when he sees that he’s distancing from his two boys and his marriage isn’t doing too well either he decides to take his family to Walley World, hoping that it will be both a great family bonding trip and help in recreating the joy he experienced as a kid.

Where can I begin to explain the travesty that is Vacation. Let’s start with the cardinal sin this movie commits which is that it isn’t funny at all and even when it attempts to seem funny it fails in every way. The writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Daley seem to know nothing about comedy, or ‘good comedy’ and the movie is pretty much just one disgusting, gross-out gag after another that made me cringe more than it made me laugh.

Now I like Ed Helms. I think he can play a specific type of character very well and I really liked him in both The Hangover and The Office but I feel that literally anyone else on the planet could have played his part and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Christina Applegate is the only good thing about this movie for me, she comes across as funny and relatable and has a couple of good scenes but that’s about it. But quite honestly I don’t blame the actors for this garbage, I blame them for choosing to be in it but ultimately the real culprits are John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who are courted to write the Spider-Man reboot, mind you

Their poorly scripted screenplay not only lacks humor but also lacks the heart that made the original so good and as a result you just can’t connect with the characters or their journey. It’s just a lame and unfunny letdown. Poor John Hughes must be turning in his grave.

4.5/10

-Khalid