The first film in the Vacation comedy franchise stars Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold, an ad exec who becomes consumed with taking his family cross-country to Wally World, a California amusement park. Less a vacation than a descent into a peculiarly American kind of hell, the Griswolds suffer through an endless series of catastrophes, culminating in a run-in with the law. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
Though lacking in narrative and comic sophistication, National Lampoon's Vacation has something arguably more important: built-in, instant audience identification. [Blu-ray]
This boasts a great cast from start to finish, but the funniest moments in this film for me invariably come from Randy Quaid, who plays Chase's dumb country cousin.
he result is not so much a comedy about American values as a 2,500 mile skid on a banana skin. The visual gags come thick and fast, and are about as subtly signposted as the exit markers on a freeway.
There are plenty of funny moments in this comedy that introduced the world to bumbling everyman Clark Griswold. The second best in the series after Christmas Vacation.
Lampoon's Vacation is so not one of the greatest comedy movies all time. However, on a positive note, it's the movie that made modern road trip movies extremely popular. Chevy Chase and his family are very likable but I felt the whole "American values" thing nearer to the end of the film was either a failed joke or a
cheesy moral. Not everything in the movie was funny or worked well but you know what? The bits that didn't miss were sublimely silly. It's the start of a franchise that is undeniably likable no matter how many times the plot is repeated. Franchises like that are hard to come by. Some of the sequels went wrong though...
January 4, 2012
Michael Miller
Super Reviewer
This comedy masterpiece is one of my favorites. Chevy Chase delivers one of his best performances as the dad that can't get anything right, a character that I wills always remember because I saw him in my dad and now I see Clark Griswold in myself.
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