Synopsis
Every summer Chevy Chase takes his family on a little trip. This year he went too far.
Clark Griswold is on a quest to take his family on a quest to Walley World theme park for a vacation, but things don't go exactly as planned.
National Lampoon's Vacation
1983 Directed by Harold Ramis
Cast
Chevy Chase Beverly D'Angelo Imogene Coca Randy Quaid Anthony Michael Hall Dana Barron Eddie Bracken Brian Doyle-Murray Miriam Flynn James Keach Eugene Levy Frank McRae John Candy Christie Brinkley Jane Krakowski John P. Navin, Jr. Nathan Cook Christopher Jackson Mickey Jones John Diehl Jeannie Dimter Barton Randy Lowell Virgil Wyaco II Gerry Black James Staley Adelaide Wilder Tessa Richarde Fritz Ford Eric Stacey Show All…
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Alternative Titles
Vacation, National Lampoon's Vacation 1, National Lampoon's Vacation 01 National Lampoon's Vacation, Locas vacaciones de una familia americana, ¡Socorro! Llegan las vacaciones, Vacaciones
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"I think you're all fucked in the head. We're ten hours from the fucking fun park and you want to bail out. Well, I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. You're gonna have fun, and I'm gonna have fun... We're all gonna have so much fucking fun we're gonna need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles! You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your assholes!"
Considering my wife and I are about to go on the road with our two kiddos and drive almost eight hours down to Orange Beach, Alabama to stay for a week, I figured there couldn't be a better way to cement my first…
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(2020 Summer Blockbuster Series)
The perfect family vacation movie ... that you wished was a little less raunchy when you actually pop it in for the whole family to enjoy!
"I think you're all fucked in the head. We're ten hours from the fucking fun park and you want to bail out. Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. You're gonna have fun, and I'm gonna have fun... We're all gonna have so much fucking fun we're gonna need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles! You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your assholes!"
In Clark W. Griswold we trust ... the flawed but relatable everyman American…
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Middle-class Griswold, pulling up to ask for directions: "Pardon me. I wonder if you could tell me how to get back on the expressway?" Outraged pimp, in reply: "Go fuck your mama." This road film is a no-filler series of episodic comedy genius, a gentle heart beating at its core, its production made possible by creativity allowed to shine without being suffocated by senseless and controlling censorship as is the current norm.
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Holiday rooooAAAAOOOoooaaaoooaaaooooad. Holiday rooooAAAAOOOoooaaaoooaaaooooad.
There's one scene here that now (and then too, frankly) is in such poor taste, where the Griswolds get lost on the "wrong side of town" and a bunch of African Americans steal their hubcaps and give them bad directions. It's just awful (on his commentary track, which was recorded at least a decade ago, Harold Ramis claimed he no longer would have put that scene in the movie; I can only imagine what he would have said now). That sequence alone requires *at least* a one-star deduction. Maybe two. Maybe more.
The rest has its moments. The last sequence at Walley World is the part I still love and I'm not even sure why. Maybe it taps into some kind of empty theme park fantasy. Or I just love CHARIOTS OF FIRE references.
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This is just a note that I realized what needs to be done to make this a truly great film: instead of making it to Walley World, the family stops at a rest stop to take a quick nap. Then proceeds the ending of Fat Girl, except with the Griswold family. Please, someone remake this shot for shot from these two movies.
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Driven by a top-of-his-game Chevy Chase, "National Lampoon's Vacation" is a memorably enjoyable beginning to a franchise that would peak two films later. Creating the iconic Clark Griswold, Chase delivers a dad whose place in cinema is defined by a predilection for invoking Murphy's Law and an awe-shucks, regular-guy nature that translates into solid, sometimes giddy comedy.
Loading a four-person brood into the family station wagon, Harold Ramis's film follows the cross-country adventures of Clark and company as they head to the theme park, Walley World, for a much-needed vacation. Beset by issues including backwoods cousins, deceased canines, and attractive blondes, everything that can go wrong does on the way to potential domestic rest and relaxation.
The story works as…
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Chevy chase is an asshole, and a dog killer. Aunt Edna is my spirit animal and they did her dirty.
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This classic comedy perfectly embodies the famous phrase of.....
"They Don't Make Em Like This Anymore" -
- Hey, you got Pac-Man?
- No.
- You got Space Invaders?
- Nope.
- You got Asteroids?
- No, but my dad does. He can't even sit on the toilet some days.
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