The first of the five of the Lampoon’s movies that I am aware of, there maybe others out there that I don’t know about but I am going to stick with five for this purpose. Released in 1983 and starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Imogene Coca, Randy Quaid, John Candy & Christie Brinkley. In this version their son is older than the daughter and I will touch on this confusion a bit later. Made on a budget of $15m it went on to return $61.4m which was successful enough for a quickly made sequel and a further two movies with the original parents. OK the bit I was going to leave to later I will force in here. The odd one out in terms of the kids is the Christmas version where many different elements just didn’t follow. You could call that movie as a stand-alone movie but even then it had its own spin off sequel so if you take that one movie in isolation then the rest will actually follow. This movie has a very similar picture from the critics as per the previous movie this isn’t going on the Tri-critic scoreboard due to one loving more than the other two. Exactly the same as before IMDb gave this movie a lower score of 7.4/10 and Rotten Tomatoes loved it with a 93% so very similar to the previously reviewed movie.
The plot could be a really short one as this is basically a family trip from their home in Chicago to south California to go to a theme park. Wally World is the destination and the family are packed into an estate car. The family wants to fly but Clark (father) wants to spend time with his family so he buys a new car which isn’t ready in time so has to take a Wagon Queen Family Truckster an ugly station wagon. They squeeze into the car and start the route across America. The Griswold’s are a disaster wherever they go and just by turning up somewhere normally means it will collapse within an hour. They go from attraction to attraction or disaster to disaster. They go to visit cranky Aunt Edna who invites herself along with them with her mean and bity dog called Dinky. Lets just say the dog doesn’t make the end of the movie thanks to another mistake from Clark. Clark who has found the interest of a hot girl in a bright red Ferrari despite driving at 55mph and sat next to his wife. The disasters continue in hilarious ways with more than one death of the car’s attendees but this doesn’t stop the unrelenting journey to Wally World and when they finally get there its closed.
That I think is a good summary as this is a disaster movie to the highest end. It is so funny that there are still points that I remember and laugh about to this day. The family dynamic is a mishmash of extremes. They kill a dog and still keep going another death isn’t going to stop them. Clark flirting with another woman and still they keep going they are going to get there no matter what. I’ve had a couple of family vacations to Scotland like that. This is probably a little crusty now around the edges as the eighties style comes shining through and no doubt some of the humour will of seen better days. If like me you saw this years ago and enjoyed it then you can breeze over those little things here and there and enjoy this for what it is. It is a funny movie, its not trying to be political or sensible it is madness and humour rolled into one movie that doesn’t take itself seriously let alone its own theme’s and topics. If you’ve enjoyed this already go back and enjoy it again.
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