During it's fourteen year run, the National Lampoon Vacation series was pretty top notch. It produced a different concept of following a family and all their crazy adventures. It was a series that besides "Vegas Vacation" showed Chevy Chase in his prime as a comedic actor and also many series can't say they used every rating from R, PG-13 and PG for the various films which shows it's a series that works for everyone.
That said, every one especially knows about the third film in the series, Christmas Vacation. It is said to be a classic Christmas film, and is well known by non-fans of film industry. The film is something you can just find on about every station during Christmas time even though it is now more than twenty years old and I don't see this dying anytime soon. Call me crazy me though, because for me Christmas Vacation is just a merely an above average film.
In the heart of Chicago, the Griswold family craziness begins during Christmas time. The Griswold extended family is here with Clark (Chevy Chase), his trashy brother Eddie (Randy Quaid) and the rest of the family. Clark deals a lot of stuff including Christmas lights, presents, a Christmas bonus issue and really everything that comes with Christmas.
I could just be nitpicking and maybe the Christmas scrooge has come out from inside of me but Christmas Vacation suffers from a lack of plot. Most of film is wandering around in an 80's style house watching a family who don't know the ways of life. With the setting being just a house, it shows off the low $27 million budget, and I don't know why the movie is called "Christmas Vacation" because the family doesn't go anywhere. Christmas Vacation is full of sex, bathroom humor, old people and dysfunctional family jokes that are typical in comedy films.
I think if a film is going to use just one setting, then it really needs to rely on the characters. The main star of the film and the father of the family, Clark Griswold (Chase) can't seem to do anything right and has numerous problems. He is an annoyance and by the end of the movie it just becomes too much. The mother of the Griswolds is Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) who is innocent in all of this and really doesn't seem to fit into this craziness. The kids are Audrey Griswold (Juliette Lewis) who is a bitchy teen who has problems with just about about everything and the younger brother is Russ Griswold (Johnny Galecki) who does nothing noteworthy. From Uncle Lewis (William Hickey) to Aunt Bethany (Mae Questel), the old people in this story are what some old people are. They are off in there own world and have no purpose or able to relate at all to the present time. The only character that really earns his keep and is worth watching is Eddie (Quaid) who's pretty funny and who has some heart. Still, none of these family members has an inch of character development.
This movie has the Christmas spirit and is original to the series so I see a reason why some people call it a classic. To me though, it just has too little on substance, has big flaws on the important parts and really all I got out of it was some smiles. Christmas Vacation is an easily watchable movie but it is a film I would rather choose to forget than to remember.
3/5
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