Les vacances du petit Nicolas

Charming comedy from France about a boy's holiday with his parents, set a few decades ago.

Despite the flawed subtitles on Amazon that kept displaying 1 as 'I', I enjoyed almost every second of this kid's misadventures with his motley crew of friends. It has all the elements of traditional farce, with some misunderstandings and classic slapstick thrown in too.

All the cast are great, and the director really captures what it must've been like in vacationing in a traditional seaside France town during the mid-20th century. Funny and entertaining for almost it's entire run length, this gets an easy 7/10 from me.

Colourful and nice film. It is so good to see routine facts from kids view.

colors and photography and humor. all from the same spirit of summer holiday. so French than becomes, scene by scene, universal. nothing special. except a form of joy who remains refreshing. because it is a film about childhood essence and about family. about small things, details, cinema industry and good choices. about a form of life , desired by everybody, innocent, seductive, comfortable. beach, room of hotel, meets - few magical. memories about the films by Tati and about similar stories. Valerie Lemercier and Kad Merad doing great job. Luca Zingaretti as seductive director . and eulogy to an unique age and its force of imagination.

The original Nicolas film, still directed by Laurent Tirard, was cute and funny. Its humour relied upon genuine written material forming consistent scenes and situations, and often based on the child's point-of-view, as in René Goscinny's exquisite little stories. "Les Vacances" relies a lot on nods and references to past cinema, and the rest is either disjointed (loose ends - what happens in the end with the tight spot at the nude beach Nicolas' father gets himself into?...) or simply unlikely. Even though the excellent Valérie Lemercier and Kad Merad still play Nicolas' parents, the actors in general, save for Bouli Lanners as Bernique, are insincere in their delivery and reactions and/or poorly directed. The father is supposed to be heartbroken by his wife extending her stay without him at the crazy big-money party, yet his face remains almost expressionless all the while...

Also, one scene suggests that hurting severely a live animal can be perceived as humorous, which I have found particularly tasteless.

I was not too enthusiastic when I started to play the tv recording of this film, but I kept watching. First I thought I recognised an actor from 'chez les chtis' Yes it was Kad Merad. I kept watching and for me things brightened. The beaches footages reminded me a little of J tati's movie. I would not say it would be a very popular movie of today's taste and you'd need a few years under your belt to appreciate some moments from it. I did, I did like the way it was different from what's on today. And to each its own! I see some critics speaking of mediocrity, perhaps it could be seen this way. But it is a comedy and it does gets laughs out of you unless you're made of stone. So this is what a comedy is designed to do - Someone else saw live animal tortured! Really...What kind of world to they want to live in? Have they ever stepped on an ant? Democracy will become Democrazy. Don't take anyone's word for it find it for yourself and perhaps like me you'll have a great but forgettable time