Ma guarda un po' 'sti americani

I have seen this movie many times and although it is nearly 20 years old, it still makes me laugh.Europe as experienced by an American family is very funny and even people who are offended by the so-called lack of respect towards the old continent, should agree that the typical characteristics of the English, French, Germans and Austrians are true to life, although admittedly slightly exaggerated.It's an unpretentious movie which aims at offering a better form of slapstick. Chevy Chase with his mixture of good intentions and bewilderment is always hilarious. One good piece of advice: NEVER go to Austria and watch the guys doing those typical male dances in their short leather pants.After having seen this movie, you will be subjected to hysterical laughter!

The Griswold's (mis-spelled here as Griswald) European Tour is far inferior to their cross-country trek to Walley World. First time around Clark had a goal, a destination, and pay-off for the audience when he finally got there. Second time around he's just wandering aimlessly from country to country, and it doesn't make for great entertainment I'm afraid.

The Griswold's win the grand prize in a humiliating TV show called 'Pig in a Poke' and are sent to England, France, Germany, and Italy on an all expenses paid trip. The bulk of the humor is a scatter-shot approach to comedy that abuses tired clichés and cultural stereotypes for quick, easy, cheap laughs.

Director Amy Heckerling may have used the first Vacation as a reference, but she doesn't have the control over the film that Harold Ramis did, and frequently allows the actors to ad-lib with the assumption that whatever they do might be funny. Even comedy actors need direction, and Heckerling's poor effort ruins many scenes that had potential. Even her camera placing and angles seem awkward and unbalanced. The grainy, low-key photography is also completely inappropriate for a film featuring such a wide range of scenery. Her use of stock footage is bad too (a shot of the Statue of Liberty shows no Twin Towers of the WTC, which were built in 1972!), and heightens the slapdash nature of the production. A few scenes seem to be edited out of order too, which leads me to believe that the script flowed a little differently before being rewritten (Clark leaves the London hotel, moves literally five feet down the street, then asks for directions back to the hotel).

John Hughes' influence on the script was obviously minimum. Vacation and Christmas Vacation were ficionalised accounts of his own family's experiences. But European Vacation feels like a quick cash-in on the original's success, and co-writer Robert Klane doesn't know how to inject the pathos and satire that was so easy for Hughes.

The European trip is definitely lagging far behind Walley World, Christmas and Las Vegas. A better director and a tighter script would have saved it. But Chase is as watchable as ever, and the only reason to sit through this poorly-made drivel.

We once again follow the Griswold family consisting of the overly ambitious Clark (Chevy Chase), more down to Earth Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) and their teenage children son Rusty (Jason Lively) who's mind is primarily on partying and girls, and Audrey (Dana Hill) whose focus is mainly on her boyfriend Jack (William Zabka) while she deals with insecurities regarding her weight and appearance. After winning an all expenses paid European vacation on game show, Pig in a Poke, the Griswolds are once again off on a vacation as shenanigans ensue.

Following the success of the first National Lampoon's Vacation, Warner Bros. Approached John Hughes for a sequel which Hughes turned down, though he would later return to the series adapting his short story Christmas '59 into National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. With Harold Ramis and John Hughes not returning for what at the time was known as Vacation II, the studio hired Amy Heckerling of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Johnny Dangerously to direct and Robert Klane who at that point was best known for Carl Riner's 1970 film Where's Poppa? And a number of comedies that flopped. When the movie was released it had a bigger opening weekend than its predecessor, but didn't have staying power at the box office making $12 million less than the first film at the box office while still turning a respectable profit. Critical reception was more negative this time around and audiences, while slightly more forgiving, were more split on the film. There are some good moments in European Vacation, but there's also some missteps that keep it from being in company with the first film.

Unlike the first film where the episodic story had an engine driving us forward with the arrival to Wally World, European Vacation doesn't have that engine to it. Because the Griswold's have most of their expenses taken care of for them by the gameshow package and they just leisurely go around European locations before transitioning to the next one, it puts a damper on the comic energy because we don't have anything to really build upon. With the road to Wally World in the first one there was a sense of building tension and dwindling resources as the status of the "Family Truckster" deteriorated more and more over time and tensions built among the Griswolds that set the stage for payoffs and escalation to complement the episodic nature of the story and we really don't have that here. The closest we get to something like that is Dana Hill's Audrey pining over her boyfriend Jack played by William Zabka and the take on Audrey is absolutely obnoxious because she only ever does two things 1) complain about the fattiness of the food and 2) whine about how much she misses Jack. Dana Hill is a fine actress if given the right material but she becomes a grating presence when her character's defining features are missing her boyfriend who's positioned as being rather verbally abusive and uncaring which is never really addressed in the movie. Eventually we do get some of that energy in the last third where the Griswolds are in Rome and they become entangled with a thief played by Victor Lanoux and it's probably the closest we get to the level we saw in the first film. There are still some very funny sequences in the movie particularly in Germany where we see Clark involved in Bavarian folk dancing that escalates into a full scale riot and Chevy Chase's line readings can still get a laugh such as when they're stuck in a roundabout in London, but without that engine driving the sequences forward they don't gain the same momentum.

European Vacation isn't a complete failure as there's still some very solid comedic setpieces and performances and there is novelty mined from the European setting. Unfortunately Robert Klane just doesn't understand these characters like Hughes did and they feel less grounded than they were in the first film and more like chaos engines for the various European cities and they lose a bit of their relatability with this fantasy of an all expenses paid European vacation pretty far removed from a cross country road trip to a Disneyland analog. Worth a viewing if you like these characters, but it's not to the level of the first film.

`Pig in a Poke' is the newest game show in the US. Families dress up in pig costumes and answer questions. At the end, they can be pigs and win a great prize. And who's starring on it? Why, none other than our favorite family the Griswalds (spelled differently in this one than the others)! After a close competition with resident champions the Froegers, they win a European vacation. Audrey (Dana Hill) doesn't want to leave behind her boyfriend Jack (William Zabka), and Rusty (Jason Lively) just doesn't want to go. They do, reluctantly, but this two week vacation doesn't go without a hitch.

2nd released in the series, and usually considered least of the series, which I go with. Simply, it's not as funny as the others: Vacation, Christmas Vacation, and Vegas Vacation. It tries to be more raucous and irreverent than the others. It doesn't have a central grasp on any one plot. They go across Europe, but there's nothing that connects all of the destinations. For instance, in Vacation there was Aunt Edna; Christmas Vacation, it actually had a real plot, and in Vegas Vacation there were a few subplots, but they all went through.

All that isn't to say that it wasn't funny, it's just not as funny as the other three. As heard from Chevy Chase on the subpar DVD commentary, he wishes to do another Vacation movie. I would like to see that. Many of the laughs came from slapstick and pratfalls, which aren't my favorite types of humor. Some of them were predictable (they go to Stonehenge…guess what?), but some of the gags (like on the train to Rome) were nice.

The MPAA wrongly gave this movie its PG-13 rating. It most definitely should have been rated R. The writers, which include veteran John Hughes, must have tried to keep the humor in the PG-13 range, because they didn't `rough it up' as much as they wanted to.

One last thought: if there was an earlier movie version of Chicago, Beverly D'Angelo would have been perfect as Roxie.

My rating: 6/10

Rated PG-13 for sustained scenes of nudity, sexual situations, teen drinking and language.

I like all National Lampoon movies with Chase. This one is no different. It's really a fun ride through Europe, with all the things you'd expect. It's a family story at its core, with the main guy leading his family on excursions. The wife is such a hottie. It's a great time in Europe, though not the best. Has it's boring parts.

6 stars