VACATION
Warner Bros./New Line Cinema
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: B+
Director: Jonathan M. Goldstein, Tracy J. Brown, John Francis Daley
Screenwriter: Jonathan M. Goldstein, Tracy J. Brown, John Francis Daley
Cast: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Leslie Mann, Keegan Michael Key
Screened at: Regal E-Walk, NYC, 7/27/15
Opens: July 29, 2015
When John Steinbeck wrote Travels with Charley in Search of America, he was not with his family but only with his dog Charley. The two traveled across our fair land in their trailer, named Rocinante. Steinbeck hoped that, using his dog to encourage strangers to chat, he would find the soul of America and by the time his trip ended, he was mighty pleased. He may not have liked “progress” such as strip malls that have been ruining our roads for a half century or more, or the witches Sabbath he witnessed in New Orleans. But if he saw Jonathan Goldstein, Tracy J. Brown and John Francis Daley’s “Vacation,” he might be tempted to give up on our country, but only to a point. Traveling with Russell Griswold (Ed Helms), Russell’s wife Debbie (Christina Applegate), their sons James and Kevin (Skyler Gisondo and Steele Stebbins), Steinbeck would have witnessed scenes that would have a movie audience roaring with laughter but would cause great dismay in the mind of one of America’s favorite novelists.
This is because though Vacation has a sentimental (but not too sticky) conclusion, one that says that there is no substitute for family, the movie is filled with broad laughs from beginning to end with scarcely a dud in the package. “Vacation,” a sequel, if you will, to a series that includes “National Lampoon’s Vacation” (voted the 46th greatest comedy film of all time by Total Film magazine in 2000), features Ed Helms in the leading role of a pilot on a low-rent airline shuttling people from South Bend, Indiana to Chicago in eighteen minutes. The laughs are crackling from the opening, which finds Russell Griswold chatting with his co-pilot, the latter a doddering old fella who keeps repeating the same words and who, when Russ is taking a bathroom break, takes the plane up to 60,000 feet when it should be readying a landing.
John Steinbeck would not have been likely to witness a small child, Kevin Griswold using the “F” word repeatedly in front of his parents and older brother James, nor would he likely find a woman like Debbie, who looks innocent enough, but who is her own person and who takes a break from the long travels to visit her alma mater, replaying some sorority party stunts that prompted to her recall of sleeping with thirty guys during her days as a student.
Steinbeck would be amazed as well to see people puking, pooping and peeing; in fact in his day Hollywood barely allowed a man and a woman to lie in bed unless each had at least one leg on the floor. And the great author would turn away rather than watch the family of four jump into a natural steaming body of water, having ignored a sign that warns people to avoid jumping in because of raw sewage. (The clueless family massaged the feces into their faces thinking that it was a health-giving mud preparation.)
Rather than describe any more of the seemingly countless sketches, each funnier than the previous one, give yourself a vacation from your daily worries by taking in this delightful comedy, which also features Chris Hemsworth, Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, and a number of cameos by actors like Michael Peña.
Rated R. 99 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B+
Acting – B+
Technical – A-
Overall – B+