National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985)

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National Lampoon's European Vacation

Dir. Amy Heckerling

Wr. John Hughes

Starring: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Dana Hill, Jason Lively

 

I love the original National Lampoon's Vacation and the Christmas sequel (the first Xmas sequel, that is). I forgot about how horrible the European movie is. Like holy crap it's bad. How does this have a 6.2 on IMDB?

 

The main issue I think is that it relies on a lot of creepy sexual jokes that aren't funny, just uncomfortable. For example, at the very beginning of the film the family is on a game show called "Pig In a Poke." The host of the show (played by Gomez Addams from the TV show, John Astin!) greets each member of the Griswolds Family Feud-style. But when he gets to Audrey, he gives her a very gross, long kiss on the mouth. She's a teenager, by the way. Also, towards the end of the film, Ellen Griswold is almost raped by an Italian charlatan. A running joke in the film when they are in France is that the French people they encounter speak poorly of the Griswolds, which of course the Griswolds can't understand. But some of these include comments on Ellen's chest and that Audrey has "a nice ass." Again, she's a teenager in this movie and the man saying this is like 40-something. There are other examples I could list but won't here. They also rely on fat jokes with Audrey's character. She eats when she's upset that her boyfriend wants to openly date other girls. Ha ha how funny, right.

 

I looked up who wrote this film and was shocked to see that John Hughes did. I was certain someone else was responsible because Hughes was usually so much better than to stoop this low. But I was wrong. Not that Hughes didn't write sex jokes, but his usually weren't so, you know, *shudders*.

 

Eric Idle appears as an English man who is hit by Clark while riding his bike. He reappears several times in the film but the running joke isn't really much of a joke at all. Kind of a wasted use of Idle's talent if you ask me.

 

Don't worry, there is a musical montage of the family trying on new clothes in Italy.

 

The movie was a financial success, with a budget of $17 mil and a USA gross of $49.4 mil. The good thing about this was probably that it green-lit the much funnier, much better Christmas sequel.