A hugely moderate, massively average and colossally middling road-trip comedy spinning off from the not especially well-loved National Lampoon Vacation films of the 80s, which starred Chevy Chase as the guy trying to haul his wife and kids off on various holidays. Ed Helms plays Rusty, Chevy’s now middle-aged son, married to that stalwart comedy trouper Christina Applegate, and he’s planning to replicate his dad’s epic car journey to a distant theme park with his two feisty boys. (Chase himself briefly lumbers onto the screen for a look-away-now cameo as the original character, now an unfunnily shortsighted granddad.)
There are one or two laughs: Chris Hemsworth has a funny walk-on as Rusty’s super-successful brother-in-law, and I enjoyed Rusty’s attempt to instigate an in-car singalong of Seal’s Kiss from a Rose. It’s similar to the recent comedy We’re the Millers, with Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston in the dad and mom roles. That had more laughs and more heart.
