Vacation

Gags about pedophilia, gags about incest, gags about animal cannibalism, more gags about pedophilia and incest, and finally, some gags about pedophilia and incest … consider my gag reflexes duly tested. This lame attempt to revive the moribund Vacation franchise is simultaneously a sequel, a remake, a reboot, a makeboot, and a bootquel, but above all it's a mean-spirited and depressing waste of time and money. Now grown up with a beautiful blonde wife and two bickering kids of his own, the luckless Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) decides to take his family on a nostalgic car trip to Walley World, with predictably gross results. Helms and Christina Applegate are professional enough to milk a few cheap laughs out of this mutilated cow, but writer-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein seem determined to keep any form of wit off the screen. The cinematic legacy of Chevy Chase deserves better, which is crazy. D.B.