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Poster art from rottentomatoes.com
Please note that I saw this on TV, so my review might have been different if I saw it "unedited"
Maybe the least memorable in the Vacation series, but brings us to the Griswold's house. The Vacation in the title is very misleading; in fact, everyone comes to Chevy Chase's house, instead of the opposite. Chase, yet again, plays Clark W. Griswold, bumbling food preservative maker. His wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) is seen under the radar for most of this movie. In fact, there aren't really any subplots. The yuppie neighbors nextdoor (Nicholas Guest and Julia-Louis Dreyfuss) (Dreyfuss was the second billed!) don't really count; they're just there for comic relief. Anyway, everyone comes to the Griswold's for a hopefully fun filled time. Yeah, right.
Clark's Aunt Bethany (Mae Questel, voice of Betty Boop) is a hoot. "Clark, is the house on fire?" "No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights." Of course, when the entire family comes, you can't really expect all of the people to be memorable (suffered last in Meet the Parents). Who is who? Well, there's a red-haired woman named Frances (Doris Roberts, TV's Everybody Loves Raymond), and a bunch of other people. Its family dynamic worked well, though, all had great chemistry. I just feel sorry that all of them had to be in the same family.
Unexpected turns come up when Ellen's cousin Eddie and cousin-in-law Catherine (Randy Quaid, Miriam Flynn), last seen in the first Vacation, decide to take their new RV to the Griswold's. Their hickish ways don't go over with the "life in the parking lot" ways of the Griswolds. Quaid is always funny, but Flynn, yet again, underplays her role.
Clark is expecting a Christmas bonus from his boss, Frank Shirley (Brian Doyle-Murray). He wants/expects it so much that he bought a down payment on a pool. Of course, he doesn't have enough money right now, but once he has his bonus.... I won't spoil the surprise, but Clark doesn't get exactly what he wants.
The kids Rusty and Audrey are now played by Johnny Galecki and Juliette Lewis, without real excitement. Before, they had had their "vices" and personal issues, but with so many people here, it's hard to focus on them. They also seem to have gotten younger. The movie isn't as funny as Vacation or Vegas Vacation, but it still earns high marks for taking a basic "family dysfunction" and making it original. Who can forget Clark's wild ride down the hill on his "rocket powered" sleigh? Is there anyone who can't hide the guilty pleasure laugh when Clark electrocutes a cat? Christmas Vacation could be called "irresistible".
It couldn't be called a Vacation movie without some unlikely but touching way of wrapping everything up. This time, Shirley provides it (who looks a lot like Walley from Vacation), and it worked on me.
The whole point of a movie is to take an unbelievable situation and make you believe. Christmas Vacation did wonders, making me think that Chase was an idiot (more so!) and that so many dysfunctions could happen at once. It's funny, mainly, and enjoyable.
Rated PG-13 for language and some crude humor.
Review Date: December 18, 2002