Review: Vacation

Torturous, mean-spirited and deeply unfunny, there is no reason in the world that Vacation should have ever been made or allowed to see the light of day.

The original 1983 film was the brainchild of the late and lamented John Hughes, who based it on his National Lampoon short story, "Vacation ' 58." The film tracked the misadventures of the Griswold family - idealistic but hapless dad Clark (Chevy Chase), eternally patient mom Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), and constantly bickering siblings Rusty and Audrey - during their cross-country pilgrimage to the fictional amusement park Walley World. Directed by Harold Ramis, Vacation was aspirational family drama as screwball comedy. The more Clark insisted on happiness, the more miserable his family became.

Hughes, Ramis and Chase were in the midst of their creative glory at the time. Screenwriters and first-time directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (who should be stripped of any goodwill he acquired for starring in Freaks and Geeks for his work here) are nowhere in the league of Hughes and Ramis. Ed Helms, who headlines the new film as the grown-up Rusty, barely acquits himself from this execrable mess of a movie. The problem may be the focus on Rusty's attempt to recreate his childhood road trip in the hopes of making his long-suffering wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) happy and getting in some quality time with his sons, sensitive soul James (Skyler Gisondo) and budding homicidal psychopath Kevin (Steele Stebbins). The family is not exactly enthused. "Won't it be a letdown?" Debbie says, but Rusty insists their trip will be different, it'll stand on its own.

Yes, it stands on its own as a hugely terrible, shoddily executed example of how movies are not mere formulas. Think of Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which failed to generate the creeping suspense of the original. There's something ineffable, something indefinable that people like Hitchcock and Hughes and Ramis add to the mix, a magic dust for which there is no recipe. Vacation recreates the episodic nature of the first film as well as several scenes such as a hot girl (Christie Brinkley then, Hannah Davis now) in a hot car flirting with the family man, but there is no spark. Even the reprise of Lindsey Buckingham's infectious song "Holiday Road" doesn't rouse as it should.

Most of the alleged jokes revolve around paedophilia, gender fluidity, attempted asphyxiation, car crashes, or the angry Korean that voices the GPS. All fall wretchedly flat. Cameos abound - Colin Hanks! Keegan-Michael Key! Charlie Day! Norman Reedus! - but their efforts are all for naught. There is simply no laughter to be had. Applegate arguably gets the worst of it; there is something so demeaning about seeing such a gifted comedic actress work with such poor material. The original filmmakers were not above putting their characters through humiliations but there was an obvious affection for the Griswolds' dysfunctionality. Beneath it all, they loved each other and we loved them for it. There's no such fondness for Rusty and his lot, who are put in one crass situation after another just for the sake of a potential cheap laugh.

Rusty and company also drop in on Audrey (Leslie Mann) and her husband Stone Crandall (Chris Hemsworth), a vainglorious TV weatherman whose Adonis good looks and rippling physique get Debbie hot and bothered and Rusty feeling like an even lesser man than he already believes himself to be. Mann and Hemsworth don't exactly have better material to work with, but their characters may have made for a more intriguing look at how the brightest of smiles can mask the darkest of distresses. The chipper desperation with which Mann's Audrey endeavours to get Stone's permission to let her work again is something to behold. Theirs is a vacation I'd like to witness.

Vacation

Directed by: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

Written by: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

Starring: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Leslie Mann, Chris Hemsworth, Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Colin Hanks, Ron Livingston, Keegan-Michael Key, Regina Hall, Charlie Day, Norman Reedus, Nick Kroll, Kaitlin Olson, Michael Peña, Hannah Davis