Christmas Vacation Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Christmas Vacation
Year: 1989
Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Country: US
Language: English

Over the course of three National Lampoon "Vacation" flicks, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) became one of Hollywood's sweetest ineffectual husbands. Certainly a family man, all he wishes is his wife and kids have a great life filled with happiness and opportunity. Unfortunately he's not a very smart man, thus his bumbling antics often deliver chaos and hair-rising misadventure. It's a franchise with an obvious formula (vacation- chaos- uncle eddy- wife loses faith- suicide contemplation-everything works out in the end) but it works.

It's Christmas time and the Griswolds are preparing for a family seasonal celebration, but things never run smoothly for Clark, his wife Ellen (played by Beverly D'Angelo) and their two kids. Clark's continual bad luck is worsened by his obnoxious family guests, but he manages to keep going knowing that his Christmas bonus is due soon.

I always found it quite odd, that in this series the adults remain the same age & have the same actors playing them, but their children vary greatly. In this film they're teenagers  played by  Johnny Galecki (Rusty) and Julliette Lewis (Audrey). Christmas Vacation does what these Lampoon films do best; create a topsy-turvey portrait of the American family & their ideals. Everything we love/hate about the holidays is made fun of- from creepy visiting uncles to finding the "perfect" Christmas tree-without being too cynical.

Although I found many scenes in the film hysterical, I can't help but feel that the pacing of the picture is a bit off. At times we are asked to laugh at cousin Ed's hillbilly antics, but at other times we are asked to share some sympathy considering they can't afford to buy their children presents. Randy Quaid isn't a good enough actor to simultaneously gross us out and make us feel for him. The child actors also lack personality & make it hard for the audience to connect with them. John Hughes script is decent & Chechick's direction is passable, but many parts would work better if they were seperate SNL-like skits rather than contributing to a feature film. 2.5/5