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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National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

Clark Griswold is so determined to take his family on a roadtrip across America that nothing will stop him, and this hugely funny 1983 comedy throws everything at him - a pubescent and errant son Russell, a lovelorn, overeating daughter, Audrey, a long-suffering but loyal wife, Ellen, mechanical problems, a dead dog, a dead aunt, embarrassing trailer trash relatives - and through it all he drives, growing increasingly frazzled until a hilarious climactic sequence in which he becomes completely unhinged at a Disney-inspired theme park, Walley World.

★★★★☆

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