Vacation (2015)

 So after the Sony hacking back last Christmas, Marvel and Sony have come to a deal to let Spiderman be allowed into MCU, and another reboot is planned to be released in July of 2017. Honestly, I'm not looking forward to the new film...at all. Not because they canceled on “The Amazing Spiderman 3” and “The Sinister Six,” or the fact that Spiderman will be played by another actor instead of Andrew Garfield (although, those reasons are up there). No, I'm not looking forward to the new movie because the script is being written by the guys who wrote and directed “Vacation.”

For those who don't know, “Vacation” is the fifth film in the “Nation Lampoon's Vacation” series, about the Griswold family and their vacation time going horribly wrong in almost every way. The first and third film hold up especially well today, thanks to John Hughes style of writing and the likable charm that Chevy Chase brought to the screen as Clark Griswold. The rest are kind of “meh”...but when you compare them to this recent installment, they're fucking masterpieces.

In “Vacation,” we follow a grown up Rusty Griswold, who works as an airplane pilot and is married with two boys. When it comes time for their vacation, instead of going to the log cabin they usually go to, Rusty decides to take them to Walley World, just like in the original film. Along the way, shenanigans happen...or in this case, “shit-nanigans.”

You remember last year how unbearable “Sex Tape” was? This film is actually worse on almost every level! The jokes in this film-oh wait, THERE ARE NO JOKES! All this film consists of is one awkward moment after another, with the cast reacting to it in either an overactive way and/or completely unrealistic way! The film also makes meta-jokes, referencing the original film and trying to poke fun at itself. But where it was done in “22 Jump Street” and it worked, this film does it just because? There's a line in the film saying, “some may not remember the original vacation, but the new one will stand on its own”...no it won't, don't lie to me, movie.

Ed Helms as Rusty Griswold was so damn obnoxious, he actually gave me a headache. From the minute we see him, you know exactly how the humor's going to play out, with him as a bumbling idiot who is also a complete windbag. I could have seen this work well as a supporting character, and see Jason Sudekis do it better, but then I would feel bad for Jason Sudekis being in this movie. I like Ed Helms fine, but as the leading man, he just doesn't have that charm to him. I feel sorriest for Christina Applegate as his wife, Debby. Throughout the entire film, she has that look on her face that spells out“Why am I here? Please, somebody shoot me!” I mean, I would have that look too if I was told to do an obstacle course puking, swim in sewage, and pretend to care about three such aggravating people for an hour and forty minutes.

Leslie Mann is in the film, playing Audrey Griswold, with Chris Hemsworth playing her husband, Stone. The so-called “highlights” of their scenes consist of their sexual passion (referencing faucets), a lot, Hemsworth keeping Mann from getting a job, and a pointless scene where Hemsworth checks up on Helms and Applegate, while he has a huge boner. Okay movie, you need to learn something here: boners aren't funny. They're not. There can be reactions to said boner, those are funny. But, if the main joke is for some guy to walk in and out of a scene with a hard on, that's not actual humor. Which, by the way, YOU NEED TO LEARN!!

And if knowing that Chris Hemsworth is in the film wasn't insulting enough, we have surprise cameos from other talented people who apparently don't care about dignity! Keagan-Michael Key and Regina Hall play the Griswold's neighbors, with Key having a playful/psychotic relationship with his son, and Hall being an uptight bitch who complains about people not liking her photos on Instagram. Okay, first off, I don't think anybody would give a shit if one person didn't like a photo on social media...okay, maybe SOME people, but not everyone! And two...how do you put Keagan-Michael Key in a movie and not have him be funny?! Seriously, how do you screw something like that up?!

In another string of cameos, we have a scene at the Four Corners, where Michael Pena, Nick Kroll, and Kaitlin Olsen play cops from each different state. Oh, and Tim Heidecker's there too, which begs another question: why the fuck is that unfunny talentless hack still getting work?! But it doesn't matter anyway, since the scene is unfunny.

Hell, not even Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo, who reprise their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold were funny. They're only there for a short amount of time, but come on! This is the third sequel Chevy Chase has appeared in, where it's a complete insult to its predecessors (the other two being “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” and “Caddyshack 2”). I feel like he did this film for the same reason he did those other films: money was involved.

The only moment in this entire film that made me laugh was with Charlie Day. He plays a river rafting guide who's fiance breaks up with him, so he tries to kill himself during the raft trip. Day knows how to make anything worthwhile...it's just too bad the scene was ruined, when they show that he survived falling off a waterfall...way to ruin the only moment of comedy you had, you bastards.

The film also shoehorns in a villain, played by Ron Livingstone, who only appears twice in the entire film. Why? No reason. He's supposed to be Rusty's rival, as this sort of bachelor pilot, but there's no build-up to this at all! He shows up once in the beginning, then appears at the end for no other reason than to pad the film out for another five minutes!

Skyler Gisondo plays the eldest Griswold son, James, who is such a spineless dork that it's insulting. He makes Greg Heffley from “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” look like James Dean for God's sake! That, and he also gets bullied by his hellspawn of a little brother. And when I say “hellspawn,” I mean that in the harshest way possible. Steele Stebbins as Kevin Griswold was the worst thing about this movie, and is without a doubt the worst child character I have ever seen in a movie. He constantly, CONSTANTLY bullies his brother, ruining his stuff, invading his privacy, and just insulting him without context. In a scene where the family is cracking jokes to lighten up the mood, he ruins it by just saying “James is a piece of shit,” as bluntly as anyone could. That, and he also makes death threats to him, saying he was going to shoot him if he got his hands on his uncle's guns, and also tried to suffocate him...TWICE!! And the audience thought this was funny? ARE YOU PEOPLE MENTAL?!!

However, the most insulting thing about this movie, was the dedication at the end, to Harold Ramis, the director of the first “National Lampoon's Vacation.” To the makers of this film, John Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, what did Harold Ramis ever do to you? Did he not tip you when you valet parked his car or something? Harold Ramis would never want to be associated with a film that was this mean-spirited, this childish, and this forced, no matter how much you try to pay him.

This was the most painful experience of a film that I've had in a movie theater this summer, and I thought it couldn't get any worse than “Hot Pursuit!” I severely wanted to walk out on this film, but in the back of my head, I knew I was going to have to finish it one way or another, so I figured it was best to just get it done and over with, and never have to come back to it. I thought I was in a nightmare, looking at the audience laughing at every sad attempt at humor. I wanted to give this film a chance. I was really hoping two of the writers of “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” and the “Horrible Bosses” films would give out something decent as directors. Then again, even someone like Robert Zemeckis has a “Mars Needs Moms” under his belt. But even with all that, the film does have some good to it, like...the seat I was in was comfy. Okay, there isn't anything good.

Rating: 1/10