From left: Skyler Gisondo, Ed Helms , Christina Applegate and Steele Stebbins form one seemingly happy family in Vacation.

Vacation (2015)
Certified: 99 minutes
Directed by: Jonathan Goldstein
Starring: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Chris Hemsworth, Leslie Mann, Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Charlie Day, Catherine Missal, Ron Livingston, Norman Reedus, Keegan-Michael Key, Regina Hall
KRS Releasing Ltd

Ed Helms is Rusty Griswold, an economy airline pilot who had at one point taken a vacation trip with his mother and father, Clark and Ellen (Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo) and his sister Audrey (Leslie Mann) to Walley World Park. Now he is married to Debbie (Christina Applegate) and has two children, James and Kevin (Skyler Gisondo and Steele Stebbins), with the latter bullying his older brother.

Every year, Rusty and Debbie go on holiday in a cabin but then he realises that Debbie is not happy about this. He thinks she is comparing him with the classier Ethan (Ron Livingston) who is constantly travelling. So he decides to change plans and go to Walley World even if he had experienced some unsavoury moments on his first trip there.

Once there, the family comes across another family and James ends up making friendship with Adena (Catherine Missal). Meanwhile, the group meets Audrey and her ultra cool and handsome husband Stone Crandall (Chris Hemsworth). The Griswolds will no longer be the same after their 2,500-kilometre-long trip.

1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation was both a commercial hit and also a cult movie. This year’s Vacation is a sequel of sorts that does not necessitate the viewing of the original, though it would be a shame not to see this little unpolished gem.

Vacation is that summer type of comedy that manages to be both naughty and funny without seemingly try too hard

Vacation is a nifty little movie that has more than its fair share of contemporary jabs but it also knowingly brings together past styles of comedy making with today’s cornerstone of laugh-out-loud moments.

With Helms at the centre of the movie, Vacation brings an almost nerdish approach to its comedy that is at times reminiscent of his same comedy style in The Office.

The tourist horrors the family encounter are well staged, with the swim in a spring that is infested with human sewage being particularly enlightening and rib cracking.

Helms is simply perfect while Applegate is also very believable. Hemsworth also leaves quite a good mark as the dim-witted husband.

Chase and D’Angelo deliver their screen presences with that nonchalance that only seasoned actors can deliver. The way the film catapults this family into all kinds of trouble makes us side with them and sympathise completely with them.

Vacation is that summer type of comedy that manages to be both naughty and funny without seemingly try too hard and thus is not forced in its approach.