Vacation

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland



















Michael's Movie Grade: F

Review: Unfunny comedy tries to hard to be like the classic first vacation film, but has none of the heart that that film, Christmas Vacation, or even the disappointing Vegas Vacation, and European Vacation.

Despite all their vulgar and gross out comedy, what made the other Vacation films work was that we felt like we were watching our family on screen, We laughed at the comedy because we related to it, not because of it's vulgarness. In this film the characters are so unreal and unrelatable that all we are left with is vulgar, and gross out comedy, and without the heart, it is no where near as funny as those classic films. It is also not funny on it's own without being compared to the other movies.

This also suffers from something that was not present at all in the previous films, and that is a sense of real meanspiritedness. This film gives us suicide jokes, the least funny conservative stereotype of all time, the bloody death of a cow, cannibalism, and rape jokes, all played only for laughs. This meansprirtedness runs throughout the whole film and is never funny enough to be justified.

While the film does attempt to add some heart towards it's end it feels forced, and simply put in there because the other films had it. There is nothing emotional about these scenes in the least, and they feel out of place.

Overall this is an awful movie that does real injustice to a great comedy series.

-Michael J. Ruhland