CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989)
Tagline: There's No Place Like Home For A Holiday!
(Comedy, Dysfunctional Family, Christmas Lights) [PG-13]
Well, I don't know what to say, except it's Christmas and we're all in misery.
In this one, Clark Griswold really wants to have a giant family Christmas at their house. What happens after is the stuff of legend.
First off, this has become one of the classic Christmas movies of our time. It’s not the greatest Christmas movie, but this one is probably in the top 10 right now in our household. It kind of serves as a lesson in how we can get super carried away with just trying to make things perfect or have them go off without a hitch. Maybe as a kid I guess I didn’t see all the stuff, my mom, grandma or dad might have seen that could go wrong, but as an adult I kind of get it. I think most people to an extent absolutely love Christmas from either a faith perspective as one of the most important events of all time (like me) or from a giving and getting gifts and spending time with family perspective (or both). Many times the actual events don’t match up execution wise and this film encapsulates that in a hilarious fashion.
Clark Griswold (played by Chevy Chase best known for this series) is a man on a mission. I think it if was just getting the lights up or trying to provide for his family, Clark would have nailed this thing, but the complications brought in by too big of a family with too small of a house for all of them is pretty familiar for me at least in parts of our Christmas day as children.
The antics in this one are probably not quite as crazy as the two other VACATION movies before it, but there are some parts that end up so intense for their neighbors, I probably would have just moved if I was them. I will say one off-putting aspect of the movie is the amount of profanity that comes almost completely from Clark. I am not obverse to profanity, but for a movie targeted mostly as families, I prefer the televised version of this movie over the theatrical or DVD versions.
Musically it was incredibly cool that they actually did a “Christmas Vacation” song just for the movie and the rest of the tracks on the soundtrack are awesome. I also thought the score and sets were pretty fantastic. Some of the movie's scenes were shot in Colorado which allowed for some outdoor shenanigans and added to the overall atmosphere of the movie. The Griswold house in the film was also Wanda’s house in the Disney + series “Wandavision”. The movie was directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik but was originally supposed to be directed by Chris Columbus who said he just couldn’t work with Chevy Chase.
Acting-wise there is just a ton of talent in this movie including Mae Questel who has over 330 acting credits but is most famous for being the voice talent behind Betty Bop and Olive Oyl. She plays Bethany in this movie. We also get Johnny Galecki (who plays Russ) best known for the TV shows “Rosanne” and “The Big Bang Theory”. The Griswold’s daughter Audrey is played by Juliette Lewis, who is probably most famous for FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. Randy Quaid (best known for INDEPENDENCE DAY) reprises his role as Cousin Eddie from the first film. We also get both Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo back, so you kind of get the idea. Acting really wasn’t an issue in this movie.
Humor wise outside of pretty much anything Cousin Eddie does, we don’t get anything overly crude in this movie which I know what a big knock on the franchise's 2015 installment. Even with the profanity, this thing works on most levels. It probably is the best of the VACATION movies overall.
For me, it lands a 6 out of 7. Much like Clark’s family, I could have done without his physical tirades and weird propensity for ogling women like a dog in heat (aside from his wife), but the verbal ones are actually pretty comical.
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