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I have to admit, I was really skeptical about the reboot of Vacation before seeing any footage. Ed Helms is just no Chevy Chase when Chevy was in his prime.
But after seeing first the red band and now this new trailer, I found myself laughing, and have decided I’m fully on board with the film.
While genuine and enthusiastic, I think with Helms, they need to surround him with comedy to make him funny. Chase was blessed with a natural physical comedy nature that elevated every scene he was in. Just the simple act of getting gas from the original film became absolutely gold Chevy Chase schtick. Helms brings a different energy, but that doesn’t mean we should rule this film out. Perhaps this is his time to show us what he can do when he’s the headliner.
Christina Applegate’s character seems like a much more reluctant participant than Beverly D’Angelo’s “Ellen,” who was always so supportive of her enthusiastic husband’s escapades.
The kids are hilarious.
And it looks like the family is stopping along the way to visit good ol’ Clark and Ellen. I really hope they give Chevy an opportunity for a little schtick. I can picture him doing his clumsy Clark thing, being even more absent-minded in his old age, fumbling about in his bathroom, brushing his teeth with Bengay, that sort of thing. Could be hilarious.
But what has me enthusiastic about this movie more than anything is the original content. Sure, it appears they are following the same road trip to Walley World structure as the original. But the stops along the way are all-new, the adventures look different.
It’s fun rewatching the original to see what a cross country road trip was like in the early 1980’s. There’s a rustic “old west” charm to it in the pre-Internet, pre-cell phone era. How has the road trip changed in today’s modern era with our technologies and creature comforts? Judging from the new family wagon, the 2015 “Tartan Prancer,” it looks like quite a bit.
And I hope the studio has thrown a few bucks towards an extended Walley World sequence, using some computer graphics to give us a truly insane theme park finale. I always pictured Wally World to be a real-life version of the theme park the Simpsons family travels through in the Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios, with death-defying attractions based on completely unrealistic physics.
After seeing so many lackluster pointless reboots these days designed to simply capitalize on the memory of the original, the new Vacation actually looks like they put some heart and soul and life into it.
Count me in for a road trip this summer with the Griswolds.