Can Hollywood go just one summer without trying to remake and therefore ruin another timeless classic?! 😯
Honestly, although I wasn’t really sure how this one was going to go, I was actually both hopefully as well as a little curious because over the last year or so I’ve grown a bit more fond of the entire series of National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, with the original 1983 Vacation becoming one of my latest go-to movies to put on when I don’t really feel like watching anything in particular, but still want something to listen to in the background.
Thankfully, for the most part Ed Helms was able to take up the, err, helm of the bumbling, but good-intentioned family man pretty well and I actually ended up really enjoying it! It certainly helped that the movie acknowledged what most of us were thinking fairly early on in the film…
Rusty’s Wife – “So you just want to redo your vacation from 30 years ago? Don’t you think that’s going to be kind of a let down???”
Rusty – “We’re not redoing anything – this will be completely different. For one thing, the original vacation had a boy and a girl, this one has two boys, and I’m sure that there will be lots of other differences!”
Rusty’s Son – “I’ve never even heard of the original vacation.”
Rusty – “Doesn’t matter…”
It was one of those remakes where there were enough similarities to bring back good memories of the classic moments from the first movie, but not so much that it just felt like a desperate, shot-for-shot remake. And granted, some of the ideas worked better than others – I liked the relationship between him and his wife and their struggles, but the younger kid bullying his older brother felt a little uncomfortable to me … to the point where I think I was entirely too happy when he finally stood up for himself and shifted the tides!
Of course, it was also neat to see Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo make a short cameo as the grandparents as another nod. I think it was almost a cheerable moment when Clark handed down the keys to the old Family Truckster to help Rusty complete the final leg of his pilgrimage to the forever-sacred Wally World. Even the inspirational chat with old pa leading up to that exchange was both kinda funny and endearing at the same time…
Rusty – “We’ve had enough – this trip has been a nightmare.”
Clark – “Well, that’s what family vacations are, but you can’t give up, Russ…”
Rusty – “They always say that it’s not the destination, it’s the journey, right?”
Clark – “The journey sucks … that’s what makes you appreciate the destination. You had a dream to take your family to Wally World – never let that go. I know I didn’t.”
I just loved this scene because in only a few short lines of dialogue, they really managed to sum up who Clark Griswold, and now his son Rusty, too, is to a T … family men who dream big and will inevitably always come up short, yet perpetually continue looking forward even as everyone else has given up on their Christmas light displays and gone back into the house or despite the realization that the entire family has just taken a bath in liquid sewage.
It’s kind of too bad to hear that apparently this didn’t really do too great at the box office or among most reviewers, but I enjoyed it and it’s one of the few recent remakes that I feel actually continues to build on its franchise instead of dragging on or even taking away from its original glory. Clark Griswold would be proud, even if nobody else was… 😉