Les vacances de la famille Johnson

Horrible, horrible movie. I am never going to get that hour and a half back. I'm so ashamed of myself for watching this movie. What a bad, bad movie. If anyone even thinks that it would be good for a laugh to watch this, think again. Vanessa Williams married to Cedric the Entertainer? I really don't think even Cedric believes this could happen. Bow Wow was, is, and forever will be a horrible actor. The song and dance routine (literally) at the end left me speechless.

Recently estranged parents Cedric the Entertainer and Vanessa L. Williams come back together to go to Cedric's family reunion. Along for the ride are their three kids (super-cool Lil' Bow Wow, super-hot Solange Knowles and super-cute Gabby Soleil) and a wide variety of mishaps and misadventures as they hit the road together in a new SUV that Cedric has borrowed from a dealership. Naturally their trip from Los Angeles to Missouri will have hilarious consequences along the way. Cedric has ulterior motives to win a "Family of the Year" prize at the reunion, getting it away from older brother Steve Harvey (in a well-timed role). He also has to contend with his mother (Aloma Wright) when he reaches his destination, but first he and his family must over-come ultra-sexy hitchhiker Shannon Elizabeth (who happens to be a black magic priestess) and even an unseen 18-wheeler driver who continues to push Cedric's buttons. "Johnson Family Vacation" is basically an African American version of the "National Lampoon's Vacation" series. Cedric and Williams have the same comedic timing and relationship that Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo shared during their long run. The kids though here are quite better than any throughout the aforementioned series. But the similarities between this movie and those from the previous series are amazing as we have an erotic stranger, a rented vehicle, a road trip, a family get-together and even a take on a Wayne Newton song. In many ways "Johnson Family Vacation" is old hat, but I still liked the film because Cedric is just such a hilarious screen presence. The others all feed off his intensity and Williams is the ultimate "straight lady" in the mix as she just seems out of place with her great looks and outstanding manners (this is a compliment to her by the way). Eventually the movie loses its way as the trip nears a close, but "Johnson Family Vacation" is still a very funny experience at the movies. Does that make it a good production? Certainly not, but it is still a legitimate rest from reality. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

When I first heard about this movie I thought 'Great, this sounds good. Its gonna be a gigantic teen hit'. Boy was I wrong. This movie is literally trash. It hardly has a plot, the jokes are all old, and everything is stereotypical. The kind of family you find on sitcoms. A stressed dad that tried to keep everything in order but fails miserably, a 5-year-old girl who is a huge fan of Chuck.E.Cheese and wax crayons, a teenage rebel who refuses to wear anything that covers her thighs and stomach at the same time, a hip-hop-worshipping teenage son with a weird way of handling his dad and a mom that allows the father to take care of everything and watches her children disrespect their dad and just smiles. Its basically a family trip where they go to see their relatives, and they go there in a flash expensive car and fall from one problem to another. They do the whole fall-from-one-problem-to-another so many times that you actually get tired and uncomfortable towards the end. This movie is boring, and you've seen or heard every single joke here before. Don't even wait for the DVD. This movie is a disgrace to the film industry. And that is all I have to say.

Going in to this movie, I actually had high expectations for it. I don't exactly know why i did, but I figured Cedric and Steve Harvey would not let me down. Well, I was without a doubt, highly disappointed. Not only was this movie boring, but it was an overall corny movie and extremely predictable. 20 minutes in to the movie, I told the person i was with exactly what was gonna happen at the end and i was exactly right. I can count on one hand the amount of times that i even got close to laughing. Well, at least Solange was pretty sexy in the movie, but believe me, thats still not enough to make this movie good. If you value your money at all, you'll wait till this comes out on video.

It is an annual event in the wider Johnson clan to get together for a reunion of food, song and competition – a competition that is always won by Mack Johnson. Despite being separated from his wife, Nate Johnson gets his family together to attend as usual and keep up appearances. With a brand new Navigator truck and a tight time scale, the family of five set out on their road trip only to find themselves having to deal with cement, police, alligators and hitchhikers – and that's all before they get to the reunion.

I generally avoid all-black comedies; not because I am racist but because the opposite is true – and I find that many of these modern blaxploitation comedies are full of racist stereotypes and broad ethnic caricatures. With this film screening on a flight I was on I decided to watch it as I find it very difficult to sleep on planes. I was pleased to find that the film didn't base itself on racist stereotypes and the like and instead went for the more race-neutral approach of road movie broad gags a la Vacation. This is not to say that it is funnier – only easier to watch because it is less offensive to me personally. The plot is very simple but it makes the mistake of not staying simple – instead it adds subplots of separation and treats them seriously. This is a problem because it rounds them off in glib, unconvincing ways that make a joke out of ever having them in the first place – the whole issue of Nate and Dorothy working things out is a perfect example, the supposed focal point of the family contest is another one – it feels tacked on.

The film is not anywhere near as funny as it needed to be to be a good comedy. It has the odd laugh but generally the humour is so very broad and uninspired that it is hard to do anything but raise the occasional smile. Part of the reason it is even slightly funny is due to the good work from Cedric the Entertainer. He isn't great here but he does manage to get laughs from the poor material he is given to deliver. Bow Wow is hardly much of a draw but aside from being an annoying rapper cliché in the making, he does do well alongside Cedric. Williams is an OK actress but here she has nothing to do – she has no laughs and she is betrayed by the script when it comes to the serious side of the film. Knowles looks sexy but that's it – nothing more than that; likewise Soleil is a 'cute kid' and nothing more. Harvey is so poor that I actually wondered if he was the reason that the whole 'family contest' thing was pushed into such a small part of the film.

Overall this is a very average film at best. The plot is terrible at points and just annoyed me in the way that it seemed to just write-off the entire affair in the final section. The laughs come mainly from Cedric who does OK considering the very broad material he has to work with (and with little support from his co-stars). It's good that it more or less avoid the lazy racist stereotyping inherent in the 'black comedy' genre but it would have been nice if they'd replaced it with something worthwhile.