The final entry in the original run of ‘National Lampoons Vacation’ movies (We dont talk about ‘Christmas Vacation 2’) Sees the Griswolds embark on probably their least interesting adventure to date, an extended Vegas Vacation…

When one of Clarkes inventions at the food company earns him a big payout, he decides to treat the family to a lavish Vegas Vacation, where he also announces he plans to renew his vows with his wife Ellen. But rather than joy, the family is kind of nonplussed by the whole thing, mainly because Vegas isnt exactly a family hot spot and for people under 21, theres basically nothing to do but sit in air conditioned theaters watching shows all day.

Nevertheless, Clarke presses on and soon the family are on the strip, and ready to party. ‘hilarity’ ensues as Clarke fallas afoul of a blackjack dealer whos seemingly bad luck, and Ellen is swooned by a residenting Wayne Newton. Oh! and because it wouldnt be a ‘Vacation’ film without Cousin Eddy…he’s here too! Remember Cousin Eddy?! he’s back!…Again!…

Eddys appearence signals bad luck for the Griswolds, as Clarke falls deeper and deeper into a financial pit of his own making, ignoring Ellen who decides to spend incresing amounts of time with Wayne Newton, meanwhile Audrey links in with Eddys daughter Vicky who takes her out with the crazy party girls…and Russ? he gets bored, so decides to buy a fake ID to give gambling a go, and he’s surprisingly lucky with it, eventually fallin in with the ‘Mob’ types and chronic gamblers who see him as they’re lucky trinket to keep around as he racks up free cars and comp’d rooms.

Eventually however; Clarkes gambling catches up with him, and when the family end up over 20k in the hole and seemingly no way out, it may well be down to Eddy of all people to save the day!

I’d not seen this film in probably 5 years or so, but with news of Vegas’s tourism industry collapsing in real time I thought i’d give it one more spin because, if nothing else its interesting to see Vegas jumping AND this is the only original Lampoons Vacation movie I hadnt actually taken the time to review or rate…

Honest opinion? its not good…its not HORRENDOUS you understand…but what we have here is an incredibly lazy sequel, where noone really seems that invested in it, where the humour is largely building on references and jokes from the previous movies…But not in a creative or unique way…in a kind of lazy ‘just ampliphying what was already there’ kind of way.

The best case study for this is probably Cousin Eddy and the family, in the first film, they were backroad yokels who were kind and pleasent, but had a strange icky undercurrent running through them, they skipped out on the sequel, but by Christmas Vacation, they were back, living in an RV, and the hillbilly elements were a bit stronger (eating squirrels, undergoing medical experiments for cash, trying to renovate clearly destroyed furniture)…In this film? they’re just doing the same thing they did in Christmas vacation, but louder…not more interesting, or taking it in a different direction. its the EXACT same joke, just not as well written and more annoying.

Clarkes a family man at heart, with a distinct run of psycopathy, in the previous films he’s shown to take things to the extreme, often endangering his own family, himself and random strangers in the process. But its all in the pursuit of trying to be a good dad and a family man…Here? he spends most of the movie avoiding his family as much as possible and learning how to cheat the blackjack table…its only when he runs out of money that he remembers he even HAS a family and goes back to them for support…This is probably the worst Clarke Griswold has ever been portrayed in any of the films really.

The humour itself is lowest common denominator stuff, when they’re not badly ripping off there own stuff, the jokes are all kind of flat or stupid. Chevy Chase has a great physical presence and can handle pratfalls with relative ease. He barely gets any time to do anything in this film other than sit by various pools and casino tables, the one big physical piece he DOES get into (set at Hoover Dam) is largely greenscreened and again, it just isnt that funny.

Theres no chemistry really between any of the characters or cast members, the decision to split the family into 4-5 different subplots that largely ignore each other is bewildering to me. because it results in you not really feeling like your watching a ‘Vacation’ movie. It just feels like bad improv in movie form.

The pacings pretty glacial, at times it just full on turns into a Vegas tourist board infomertial, the tone swings between just about tolerable and unpleasent. and the character arcs arnt rewarding, and at times just feel a bit unpleasent. with the 3rd act resolution that solves the Griswolds troubles being particularly hard to believe given everything that happened in the preceeding 80 minutes.

Directions fine enough, theres some early greenscreen work that hasnt aged that well, but its a studio pic and for a generic film, a late 90s Lampoons film at that…its fine. but nothing really special. Same goes for the cine. it’s just…kind of unremarkably ‘okay’.

The soundtrack feels like its creaking at times mixing late 70s/early 80s fanservice tracks with mid 90s dance and house music…it’s a weird concoction and a fairly nauseating one at that.

Performance wise, its screaming paycheque gig. Im assuming Chevy was being problematic as he gets basically nothing to do, the odd vocal joke and a tiny bit of physical prat falling is about all there is, Randy Quade gets the lions share of the ACTUAL comedy in this and…as I’ve said before ‘Cousin Eddy’ is a flavour enhancer of a character, NOT a main ingrediant. You add him to an already funny character to make the situation funnier…but on his own? it becomes grating almost immediatley.

The rest of the Griswolds (D’angelo, and new in towners Marisol Nichols and Ethan Embry as Audry and Russ) are just…kind of flat really. they giving theater performances for a film that really would have benefitted from a more naturalistic turn. and as a result, they dance between annoying and just kind of okay throughout the runtime. Its clear from how they handled this that non of them expected this to be a career launch in any capacity…

‘Vegas Vacation’ is a stale comedy with a cast who probably could have done better with better material. Its a cheap cash in movie off the back of arguably 2 of the greatest US comedies ever made and arguably one fo the best Christmas movies ever made. and its painfully obvious the film makers knew this and just wanted to shake the piggy bank on this one to see what fell out.

It blows my mind that this film came out one year AFTER ‘Beavis and Butthead do America’ a film that handles the Vegas comedy setting MILES better than this film (and this film has the gaul to actually steal a couple gags from that film…) This? was a wasted opportunity, and a bit of a sour note to end the ‘Vacation’ films on…I totally get why Its been so long since I last checked it out, and it’ll probably be a lot longer before I go back again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/vegas-vacation/