allyatherton What happens when a moron takes a road trip around Europe.Starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Dana Hill and Jason Lively.Written by John Hughes and Robert Klane,Directed by Amy Heckerling.I chose this oldie to watch on New Year's Eve with my family.It's a fun movie and kept us entertained while we waited for Big Ben to chime in the new year. We all had a good chuckle and I think we all enjoyed it. I don't know what was funnier, the script or the eighties clothes!A fun way to see in the New Year,7/10

eric262003 In 1983, "National Lampoon's Vacation" was commercial success. The slapstick comical elements marked a positive outlook on the Griswolds as they became America's most beloved dysfunctional family. So instead of resting on their laurels for at least three or four years for a possible sequel, Warner Brothers decided to bring them back to the screen two years too early with "National Lampoon's European Vacation". After winning a game show hosted by John Astin ("Addams Family's Gomez Addams), the Griswolds win a trip to Europe as they embark on several misadventures as the explore the vast landscapes and the cultural settings for them. Sure like the other "Vacation" series, the plot is very thin, but the story itself was very inferior to its predecessor and the laughs were blatantly pedestrian and aside from that the characters also felt jilted as they went from the typical unlucky family to just plain old American idiots that give the wrong impression that Americans are ignorant to European culture. It didn't help that all the performers returned for the sequel, as Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo return as Clark and Ellen Griswold, however when Anthony Michael Hall was asked to reprise his Rusty Griswold character, he rebuffed and chose to do the 1980's cult classic "Weird Science". They didn't bother asking Dana Barron if she wants to reprise the Audrey Griswold character. They hired new performers for the kids. Jason Lively was not very good in his role as Rusty as he comes across as goofy, awkward and over-the-top with his perverted ways which comes off more stupid than comical. Dana Hill was a better replacement for Audrey than Dana Barron because there is more depth to her character in spite of repetitively lamenting over abandoning her new boyfriend, Jack (William Zabka). Chase goes a bit beyond the role of Clark here as the somewhat easily disgruntled father, here as Clark he comes across as a complete moron who can't do anything right and seems to cause destruction towards everything he touches and everyone around him feels his wrath. D'Angelo meanwhile stays persistent and didn't change that much in the movie as the level-headed matriarch trying to keep Sparky and the kids from insanity. Eric Idle as talented as he is for comedy has a very thankless role as an unfortunate Englishman that the Griswolds keep running over. It's never explained how he always runs into them in England, France and Italy, the irony itself is quite disturbing. What hurt this film badly was that comedy director the late Harold Ramis was too busy starring in "Ghostbusters" that he wasn't reached to direct. So instead Amy Heckerling who was still living on the coattails of the cult classic "Fast times at Ridgemont High" took over the director's chair. Heckerling's flair of comedy seems more concrete, which sadly takes over from the craziness from the over "Vacation" films. The fantasy sequences in the film work pretty good, however, I too felt it was inspired by other bodies of work Heckerling has done before or some other project she had in mind.I'm not playing the blame game entirely on Miss Heckerling as John Hughes returns to the scene as the scriptwriter, however I think there was some dispute that erupted as Mr. Hughes must have walked out at some point because there are a lot of surreal slapstick moments that doesn't feel like the John Hughes films we're all familiar with. The first "Vacation" film was funny because the situations faced by the Griswolds are something we could get the gist of. The humour delivered here comes off clichéd, and borderline tasteless. The silliness can be quite cringing with its racist overtones that the humour can be very disturbing at times. Are British people always this nice and genteel all the time? Are the French always dismissive and rude? Are Germans always aggressive and stiff? The scenes that made me laugh are scenes that had similarities to the ones from "Vacation". When the Griswalds interact among themselves the comedy comes across nicely. But when they're interacting with foreign policies it's actually poorly executed. The ending of this film was too rushed and also quite uninteresting you would miss the ending even if it came out to bite you. Aside from that I thought that this movie deserved an R rating rather than a PG-13. There's a lot of swearing, nudity and a myriad of hedonistic scenes that go beyond a PG-13 film. Several of the swearing was dubbed to avoid it from being an R rated movie, just in case you invite the young kiddies to see this film. Better yet, avoid the kids from seeing this movie and rent "Christmas Vacation" instead. There's foul language, but very minimal and used for more comic effect. I was a bit appalled that the family's last name was Griswald in this movie instead of the normal spelling Griswold. It wasn't the downfall for Miss Heckerling as she went on to direct the 1989 film "Look Who's Talking" while that same year Chase, D'Angelo and Hughes collaborated to make the far superior "Christmas Vacation". Even though this movie wasn't the best addition to the Vacation series it wasn't a complete failure and if you could refrain from taking this film seriously or offensively, it can be quite enjoyable.

videorama-759-859391 The problem with sequels, they mostly disappoint. Not really so with this one. Yes the first was classic, funny, and hard to beat, with a whole lot of reality hidden under Clark's escapades and misadventures. Much the reality that we can relate to was the beauty of that film. What works here, of course not scoring as many laughs as the original, is the change of location, or should say the change of locations, as The Griswalds win a trip to Europe, all by accidentally winning a round on a game show, up against a real genius, and unbeatable family, up until now. Even though this has been dissed, I never had a problem with this one where again, there's a lot of reality here, we can relate too, when going away, one especially, involving running up a phone bill. Here of course, Clark creates chaos and misunderstanding as remember, he's in Europe. They even visit the wrong address of relatives, who of course, are strangers to these wild family on the account of a half veiled address number. Another misunderstanding which resulted in a chase was the German dancing. Oh did I forget, they visited Germany as well. We have different actors replace Rusty and Audrey, as in all the Vacation series, and there are a few cameos from some English greats. I thought the bit with poor bicycle rider Idle was sick though, on the account of the 'wrist squirting blood' moments. The writer or writers here have really honed in on picking out funny happenings and situations, where for me this was a potpouri of laughs from a potpouri of laughs from a potpouri of cities, which made this one work. Even on return, the Griswalds cause the plane to knock the statue of liberty off.

willcundallreview National Lampoons European Vacation is a film that although never lives up it's very good starting film, still manages a few chuckles and brings us back a family we love to laugh at. It has a lot of new places and doesn't just stick around from the first film, travelling across Europe the Griswold family get up to more crazy hijinks and basically ruin everything for anyone that comes there way. I thought it was safely a kind of OK movie, and here Is why.The story is as crazy as the first and never really stops trying the same thing, you could say this is what makes this not the best comedy, but the old jokes still sure do work. It is fast paced and they move around very quickly from place to place, it doesn't affect it but it can be hard to establish characters they come across who just seem like they are all cameos. It has it's moments of jokes, not too many but no jokes annoy so it doesn't quite ever get to be a bad movie.Chevy Chase is good in the movie, his funny acting skill is slightly drowned out by some poor writing and direction but he still does a good job to be the head of the family. I found the rest of the family poor and the two new children actors who took over from the first films originals just aren't funny, it lacks the one liners the first two children brought to us. I liked the cameos we do see they are funny, don't work so well as I previously said but still add to the humour.I'm sad to say Amy Heckerling doesn't do to good of a job here, I think one reason people disliked this movie at the time was because of her direction, she doesn't do enough to bring the laughs out of the scenes. John Hughes has massive talent in comedy writing and even stronger when writing cross country trip comedies, and he doesn't do BAD here, just not great either, the words are the funniest part of this movie and chuckles can be had but I expected much better from such a legend of comedy writing.My main criticism as can be seen is the lack of jokes, they are there yes but don't often come out and when they do you could already be hating the film. Starts very slow and although it does get into a nice rhythm, Chase can't do enough to make it good enough. I also disliked the timing, bit too short or maybe the scenes are too short, much more could have been done in timing the film.I think those who liked the first film will enjoy this, nowhere near as much but you still get some genuine laughs and if you heard it is bad, then you may feel guilty because you will laugh. It has a lot of slapstick type jokes, so for those who dislike that kind of thing stay away for good. This film seems almost as if the family don't bond at all so it could be said if you like dysfunctional comedies.Overall it is a Safely OK-ish Movie, nowhere near being Good let alone OK but still more than just your average comedy, well in my opinion. I think some may hate this, some may love it, it depends on whether you think you have such a thing as class when it comes to movie. Don't think into this film too much and it could have you in stitches, if you do, you may despise it.