Vacation (2015)

There are some amusing predicaments typical of the sort the old Griswolds got themselves into, in this 2015 new generation tie-in to the National Lampoon's movie series, but the new movie doesn't work very well because where the Chevy Chase movies were comedies for the whole family with a moral compass and humour of both the more risque adult variety and some goofy childish stuff as well, this new movie is aimed squarely at a teenage audience judging from all the young people in it who swear like troopers, the outrageous lack of consequence in scenes that end calamitously with injury and death, and not to mention the update's distinct lack of heart — this is sometimes funny, but more often shrill, puerile.

★★☆☆☆

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Bad Moms (2016)

On the basis of other "Bad..." movies (Bad Grandpa, Bad Santa, Bad Teacher, Bad Teddybear (well, Ted)), you'd be excused for dismissing this as just the latest middling grossout comedy about responsibility-shirkers, but in fact this one is carried off by such a winning cast (Mila Kunis gives a career best performance, and Kristen Bell, Christina Applegate, and Kathryn Hahn in the Melissa McCarthy role are hilarious), and is overall such a warm and winning tribute (we discover that the bad moms of the title are mothers everywhere struggling to do their best) that you can forgive the sequences that fall flat and the comedy's frequent disingenuousness about single parents and in the way it presents Mila Kunis as a dag needing fashion and relationship help.

★★★★☆

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