Vegas Vacation

With Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid
Directed by Stephen Kessler
Written by Elisa Bell and Bob Ducsay 
by Chaz Thorndike

Zany Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) drags his lovely wife Ellen (D’Angelo) and two kids, Rusty and Audrey (played by, um, some new kids), off to Vegas for another two fun-filled hours of Ghastly Griswold Tales. Despite the resurrection of the Sexy Woman in the Red Ferrari (Christie Brinkley – still lookin’ fine after all these years, but damn, is she hard up for paying gigs or something?), the dreaded reunion with their white trash terror cousins: Eddie (Randy Quaid), his dishrag wife, his lap-dancing daughter (cheap sex appeal, kids!), and face-pierced-shut son, some guy named Wayne Newton or something, and that short, wicked dude who said “Inconceivable!” all the time in The Princess Bride, this movie sucks. The Simpsons replaced the Griswolds long ago as the well-scripted dysfunctional family of choice, so even Chase’s goofily human expressions and D’Angelo’s warm body appeal can’t cut it against the cartoons. Formula: Dad’s a dope, drives everyone away, they all do their solo adventure things, he has a revelation about the importance of family, he drags them all back, they resist, he wins them all back in some outrageously daring/stupid/improbable act, and they all end the vacation a happy family. Seen it, done it, been there. They didn’t have a dead aunt strapped to the roof nor a porn film accidentally made from their home videos, so who the hell cares anymore?