TURKEY (no stars). Rated R, for relentless profanity, crude and sexual content, and brief graphic nudity
By Derrick Bang
Wow. And I thought Pixels was bad.
Actually, it is bad. But this one’s worse.
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| Are you sure this is a good idea? Rusty (Ed Helms, far right) insists that their whitewater rafting guide's sudden romantic breakup won't affect their excursion down the Colorado River. The rest of the family — from left, James (Skyler Gisondo), Kevin (Steele Stebbins) and Debbie (Christina Applegate) — have their doubts... |
Even by the deplorable,
lowest-common-denominator standards set by the likes of Ted 2 and most Melissa McCarthy vehicles, this updated Vacation is a ghastly train wreck, and
an embarrassment to all concerned.
I’m stunned by the notion that
writer/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein actually got paid
for their so-called work on this turkey. Where can I get a job like that?
Far from accepting a paycheck for
this mess, they should have been forced to surrender every cent they made on
previous efforts. Oh, wait ... that would be both Horrible Bosses entries, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Not much profit participation there.
I still can’t fathom how
Hollywood works. On the basis of the above, the most recent of which was the
gawdawful Horrible Bosses 2, these
talentless hacks are “rewarded” with a directorial debut?
We can pray only for celestial
justice: that this will be the first and
last film ever directed by Daley and Goldstein.
In fairness, this remake is
“justified” better than some. Rusty Griswold, the kid who endured the world’s
worst family road trip back in 1983’s National
Lampoon’s Vacation (and who was played by a young Anthony Michael Hall),
has grown up to be a dweeb every bit as inept as Daddy Clark (Chevy Chase, back
in the day). Sensing family ennui, the now-adult Rusty decides to spice things
up by re-creating that long-ago excursion.
Cue another dire road trip, with
all sorts of calamities and opportunities for mortification.
Trouble is, Daley and Goldstein
obviously never got past that one-sentence pitch, which somehow buffaloed
Warner Bros. execs into bankrolling this disaster. As a result, this new Vacation doesn’t merely feel random, or
made up from one day to the next; it’s a blatant exercise in lazy filmmaking.
Cast members don’t even try to emote; everybody just sorta
stands around and intones lines, with all the dramatic heft of a toddler
learning her first words. I’ll bet these folks didn’t even memorize their
dialogue; I’d swear they were reading off-camera cue cards.
It could be argued, of course,
that this script didn’t deserve better.
Daley and Goldstein don’t know the
first thing about drawing persuasive line-readings from their actors, nor can
they place a camera to save their lives. I’d love to have been a bug on the
wall, listening to them tell cinematographer Barry Peterson what to do. On top
of which, their “guidance” to editor Jamie Gross must’ve been equally vague, as
the finished result lurches fitfully from one clumsy set-piece to the next.
The only saving grace in most
vulgar moron comedies is the suggestion (often weak) that our hapless
protagonist(s) deserve — and eventually achieve — some sort of redemption. Some
sort of epiphany. Or, failing that, some sort of well-deserved revenge.
Not here. These folks don’t
deserve anything, least of all 99 minutes of our time, not to mention whatever
it cost to occupy the theater seat you’ll beg to flee.
To cases:
Rusty (Ed Helms) has become a
pilot for a notoriously low-rent airline, relegated to the same daily 18-minute
commuter flight between South Bend and Chicago. Wife Debbie (Christina Applegate)
loves him, but there’s no denying that their marriage has become humdrum. No
spark in the love life.
They have two sons: the nerdy,
teenage James (Skyler Gisondo) and the potty-mouthed, adolescent Kevin (Steele
Stebbins). We get a measure of this script’s barrel-scraping desperation
immediately, when the uncontrollably nasty Kevin accuses James of having a
vagina. (This is funny?) That’s the film’s principal running gag: that little
Kevin is the tormentor who terrorizes his older brother, both verbally and
physically.
Not that it matters, but Daley
and Goldstein can’t seem to decide whether James “deserves” this abuse because
he’s effeminate (he keeps “girlish” journals), or because he’s nerdy (he uses
big words). James’ characteristics shift, absent-mindedly, from one scene to
the next.
I hate to pick on children, but —
based on this evidence — Stebbins couldn’t act to save his life. He just stands
and spouts profanity. And smiles while doing so: not because that would be in
character, but as if he’s delighted by the opportunity to get paid for talking
dirty.
Anyway...
Rather than spend another summer
vacation in the same tired lakeside cabin, Rusty borrows a page from his
father’s notebook, and proposes a trip to Southern California’s Walley World,
home of the new, way-scary Velociraptor rollercoaster. Debbie, James and Kevin
are underwhelmed. The indefatigably upbeat Rusty perseveres, and off they roar,
in a rented Tartan Prancer, a mis-designed vehicle that causes all sorts of
trouble as the film progresses.
Fairness dictates acknowledging
the obvious: Everything about this vehicle is funny. Things are pretty bad,
when a cast’s human performers are upstaged, at every turn, by a car.
Subsequent opportunities for
gross-out “humor,” feces baths and (plenty of) projectile vomiting are supplied
by stops along the way: a visit to Debbie’s former college sorority, Memphis
State’s Tri-Pi, where Rusty discovers that she had quite a reputation, back in
the day; a relaxing dip in a “hot spring” that turns out to be anything but natural; and a Grand Canyon
whitewater rafting trip led by a just-jilted and therefore unstable guide
(Charlie Day, overdoing his shriekingly shrill shtick far beyond its
sell-date).
A few stops are fitfully amusing.
A visit to the Four Corners landmark — which Rusty and Debbie hope to
“christen” with a late-night shag — turns into a jurisdictional snafu when
rival park cops from Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico argue over who gets
to arrest them.
Far better is a overnighter with
Rusty’s sister, Audrey (Leslie Mann), and irritatingly successful
brother-in-law, Stone (Chris Hemsworth). This detour offers a few chuckles
solely because Hemsworth brings such desperately needed life to the film, by
actually acting (what a concept!).
His preening, horn-dog weather forecaster is an amusing character, and
Hemsworth milks the role for all it’s worth: a sparkling diamond amid the
dross.
At the far other end of the humor
scale, I submit the denouement of a running sequence with a vengeful trucker,
which initially plays out like Steven Spielberg’s Duel ... but then shifts into an entirely different, and
jaw-droppingly tone-deaf gear.
All together now, class:
Pedophilia
is
not
funny.
Never was, never will be. And in
a film laden with lead-balloon one-liners that fail to deliver, nothing falls
flatter than the punctuation of this
gag: a brief comment that Daley and Goldstein unwisely — stupidly — allow to
just hang in the air, granting us plenty of time to think ick and reach for the pitchforks.
I mean, seriously? What were they
thinking? What was Warner Bros. thinking???
I was prepared, magnanimously, to
grant this film one star for Hemsworth’s performance. But that pedophilia
“joke” flushed any such generosity.
Chase and Beverly D’Angelo
briefly reprise their roles from the original Vacation, and Catherine Missal is flirtatiously charming as a
teenage hottie who catches James’ eye. Alas, Daley and Goldstein abandon her
character: another mistake.
Actually, everything about this
film is a mistake.
Big-budget studio movies are
massive undertakings, even when the results are so appalling. Rarely have so
many labored so long, for so little.
Gotta be this summer’s biggest
stinker (in more ways than one).
At
least, I fervently hope so.
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