National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation [M]

Clark Griswold has one goal this Christmas: to have the perfect, ideal family celebration. But Clark’s perfect Christmas quickly turns into an absolute disaster as his parents and his in-laws fight constantly, his redneck and dim-witted cousin in-law turns up on his lawn, and a continuous string of catastrophes befall his Christmas decorations. One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be a Christmas that none of the family will ever forget. 

There is a long string of these National Lampoon movies, none of which I have ever seen. I figured at this festive season of the year, I may as well start with this one. By no means a bad or outdated movie, I think that National Lampoon movies are something that it’s better to grow up on, watch as a youngster, because the slapstick humour, the sight gags, and everything else in them seemed to be jokes and gags that I would have appreciated more when I was younger. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation but would not call it a laugh-out-loud comedy. I only laughed out loud once. 

Clark Griswold has one goal this Christmas: to have the perfect, ideal family celebration. But Clark’s perfect Christmas quickly turns into an absolute disaster as his parents and his in-laws fight constantly, his redneck and dim-witted cousin in-law turns up on his lawn, and a continuous string of catastrophes befall his Christmas decorations. One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be a Christmas that none of the family will ever forget. 

The simple premise and basic story of the movie leave it wide open for a huge variety of comedy, which is want you want for these sorts of films so that’s a plus. Basically the film is made up of slapstick humour, a little bit of toilet humour, and eccentric and memorable characters. 

The writing is rather clever, sneaking one or two references from Halloween into the mix which I rather liked, and amidst all the comedy still managing to come through with a nice holiday message about what Christmas really means. 

At the end of the day there really isn’t a lot you can say about this movie because there have been so many like it time and time again. But, no matter how many of them you see, they never lose their flavour. 

Starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki, John Randolph, Diane Ladd, E.G. Marshall, Doris Roberts, Miriam Flynn, and Randy Quaid, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is a fine movie filled with memorable characters, holiday spirit, drama, and plenty of comedy. It’s nothing to rave about, but it’s a good movie nonetheless.