reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (07/31/85)
It's no trick to figure out if you will like "National
Lampoon's European Vacation": it's quite a lot like "National
Lampoon's Vacation". It's a very similar package: stupid, vulgar
people making fools of themselves on vacation, purposefully stu-
pid and vulgar enough that the average filmgoer will feel himself
superior to them, but the whole gauged so that most people won't
notice that the filmmakers are laughing at them, too, painting
them as slightly less exaggerated versions of the yahoos on the
screen. This is an old satirist's trick, one that the National
Lampoon is very fond of. It doesn't add much to the fun of the
production, but it does wonders for the egos of the filmmakers.
There's enough funny material to compensate, though, and, if you
see through the filmmakers' trick, then you get to laugh at them
for being so insecure that they have to build up their egos by
condescending to people whose brains have been turned to Malto
Meal by too many raunchy teen comedies.
There is a new element in "European Vacation", or, more pre-
cisely, an element borrowed from somewhere besides the first
film, and that is the old standby of the obnoxious American
abroad. Mark Twain got a lot of mileage out of this one, and sa-
tirists on both sides of the Atlantic have gleefully joined in
the trashing of American tourists ever since. "European Vaca-
tion" has nothing new to add, but it does go over old territory
reasonably well.
The Griswold family, who succeeded in making their last va-
cation a misery, is at it again, having won a European trip on a
wonderfully vulgar game show, "Pig in a Poke". Mom and Dad (Bev-
erly D'Angelo and Chevy Chase, both returning from the first
film), are enthusiastic, but their teenaged kids (Jason Lively
and Dana Hill, replacing Anthony Michael Hall and someone else)
don't want to go. Dad packs them all off, none the less, for a
whirlwind tour through Britain, France, Germany, and Italy.
Disaster waits at every turn, compounded by the Griswolds' ig-
norance, arrogance, and thoughtlessness. Oh, what fun. Chase
and D'Angelo are both pretty good, and Lively is interesting
enough, though not as good as Hall was. Dana Hill has a whiny,
unpleasant part, in which she is whiny and unpleasant.
Like the first film, "European Vacation" features a number
of cameos by semi-well-known actors, but this bunch isn't as
close to famous as those in "Vacation". Instead of John Candy
and Eugene Levy and Christie Brinkley, we get John Astin and Paul
Bartel and Moon Zappa. Astin is very funny as the gameshow host,
the others have little to do. Eric Idle is underutilized as a
bicyclist unfortunate enough to encounter the Griswolds. He
should have encountered them once more than he does, though, and
the film isn't brutal enough to make some of his bits really
hilarious.
In some ways, "European Vacation" is a softer film than "Va-
cation". "European Vacation" sets up a joke deliberately remin-
iscent of one of the grosser, and funnier, bits from "Vacation",
but it backs off it a little, making it less funny. While not as
vicious as "Vacation", "European Vacation" is an odd film to wind
up with a PG13 rating, as it features copious raunchy language
and an amount of nudity usually sufficient to guarantee an R rat-
ing. The easily offended are thus warned. Last summer's as-
surances that the PG13 rating would be used for hard PG films,
not soft R films, seems to have been forgotten, which should make
adolescents happy and parents upset.
Amy Heckerling, director of "European Vacation", proved in
"Johnny Dangerously" that she could handle vulgar language with
as little sensitivity as any man, and here she further shows that
she can exploit female nudity just as crassly as the garden
variety male chauvinist director. However, her gags and timing
are better in "European Vacation" than in her previous film. She
has certainly shown as much talent for comedy as most of the oth-
er directors working on second rate teen films nowadays, but she
hasn't demonstrated anything special.
John Hughes again wrote the first draft for the script, but
I don't think his heart is in it, any more. After making "The
Breakfast Club", how much enthusiasm could you muster for a pro-
ject like this? His co-writer, Robert Klane, doesn't add any
special zest, and neither of them has particularly good ideas,
so they run through a bunch of old standbys. They get rather less
steam out of them than they might. The best they can do with
the inevitable language problems, for instance, is to have Chase
mangle French and all foreigners say obscene things to Chase which
he misinterprets. Too many other gags prove predictable, such as
the outcome of the Griswolds' visit to Stonehenge, which is preordained
from the moment they arrive. Someone should tell Heckerling, Hughes,
and Co. that there is a difference between setting up a joke and
telegraphing it.
Warner Brothers seems to have little confidence in "European
Vacation", as they sneaked it out into the theaters without sub-
stantial advertising. In the light of the success of "Vacation",
which didn't have that many more good laughs, the studio's lack
of confidence is surprising. "National Lampoon's European Vaca-
tion" will probably satisfy fans of the early film, but has few
attractions for anyone who didn't like "Vacation". Enough people
liked the first film to assure "European Vacation" at least a modest
success.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiheralle@ihuxb.UUCP (Allen England) (08/05/85)
I saw this movie yesterday and I was extremely disappointed. No laughs
that I or my wife could remember and all the *jokes* were very predictable.
I give this movie 1/2* and that's only due to the gratuitous nudity contained
therein!
--> Allen <--
ihnp4!ihuxb!alle