JSmith125

Rusty Griswold, now married and middle-aged, packs his complaining family into another barely roadworthy vehicle to reprise the cross-country "Wally World" adventure he remembers from his own youth 30 years earlier. For a remake, that's a great premise; it's just too bad they couldn't come up with a better script. There are a few good jokes, including two or three in the movie's very first minute, but almost nothing in the next 98 that tops those. (One highlight: a set piece involving territorial state troopers at the "Four Corners" monument; stick through the closing credits to see how that one comes out.)

So, overall, it's cruder and less funny than I had hoped. But I give it a 6/10 anyway, because Ed Helms and Christina Applegate are always likable, the Lindsay Buckingham / "Holiday Road" opening credit sequence is terrific on a big screen, and there's a sprinkling of apt (though uneven) reminders of the original "Vacation," including one sequence featuring the original Griswolds, Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo. Most of all, despite enough filthy jokes and language to fill several Wagon Queen Family Trucksters, the movie preserves what I have come to appreciate most about the whole "Vacation" series: the well-deserved, sentimental tribute it pays to a great unsung hero, the Middle American Dad -- a man on a mission, bound and determined to make sure the whole family has a good time whether they like it or not.