Vacation movie review

Or perhaps the Publications Control Board should invent a new restriction: “Not for anybody with good taste”. Or: “No persons in their right mind allowed”.  But again, humour is personal and what one person finds funny, another might find common and despicable. Vacation is a case in point.

It is a kind of belated sequel to National Lampoon’s Vacation from 1983. Yes, that Chevy Chase movie. (Chase was the equivalent of Adam Sandler today. You either ignored his annoying movies like a bad head cold, or you loved him). The same applies with Vacation. But even though this review is negative, there might be readers who find abusive, common and depraved humour such as this funny.

The film takes unsuspecting viewers on a road trip to Walley World (don’t ask where that word or its spelling comes from). A nerdish husband (Ed Helms) wants to spice up his sex life with his wife, Christina Applegate. Going to Walley World might just be better than the blue pills the doctor ordered.

He also wants to bond with his two sons. On their way they encounter some revolting people who are thankfully only to be found in America (giggle, giggle) and they land in situations that you may not even find in a Leon Schuster film. I am referring to early Schuster, before his jokes had subtext.

Be warned, the jokes are brutally unfunny, rude and cruel. Attrocious language, some pubic hair and lavotorial humour could shock sensitive viewers. But if you like your humour offensive and overdone, complete with lots of blasphemy and four-letter words, you might enjoy seeing people swimming in sewage or a mother drinking herself into a stupor in front of her kids and then vomiting for the rest of the day in full sight of everybody.

Do you really need this in your life?