First law of Modern Hollywood: Every film or series or franchise you love will eventually be remade in one way or another. Not just the action outings or the book-based features, either; even the original comedies will eventually prove to be fodder for the vociferous maw of the remake machine. Today, that beloved film is National Lampoon’s Vacation, now styled as the Ed Helms-starring Vacation. A mishmash of reboot and sequel, Vacation takes on the classic comedy of the 1983 feature film, and shoves it violently into modernity. At least there’s Walley World at the end!
The film recasts the Griswold siblings (an amusingly traditional move) as grownups, played by Helms and Leslie Mann, who have apparently drifted apart over the years, an easy enough plot point to swallow, as Rusty and Audrey never really got along. The pair are reunited when Rusty decides to take his own family, including wife Christina Applegate, on a cross-country road trip that mimics the mapping of the original film. All sorts of horrible things happen along the way, including an awkward reunion with Audrey (and her touchy-feely man-friend, played by Chris Hemsworth), some sort of vaguely racist interaction with Charlie Day, and a run-in with a sewage dumping ground. At one point, one of the Griswold children attempts to smother the other with a plastic bag.
This Vacation does, however, appear to retain some of the big jokes of the original film, like Chevy Chase being mad about stuff, the acquisition of a terrible car, and an inter-family breakdown inspired by their inability to just goddamn get to stupid Walley World. Buckle up!
The trail of the tape
Title: Vacation
Directors: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein
Screenwriters: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein
Cast: Ed Helms, Leslie Mann, Christina Applegate, Beverly D’Angelo, Chevy Chase, Chris Hemsworth
Release date: July 29, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “What kind of asshole would drive his family cross-country?”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
Occasionally, it’s important to remember some salient facts about reboots, like that you don’t need to see them, or that their creation doesn’t nullify the existence of the original film. Just some food for thought.