After "Christmas Vacation", the producers decided that what the next entry needed was more cousin Eddie. Unfortunately what they give us is too much cousin eddie. in your original vacation, he only had limited footage, and in Christmas vacation, he was surrounded by a huge ensemble of popular character actors. Certainly, he is funny and small doses, but he's on-screen way too much here and that spoils the buffet.
A funny gag has Chevy Chase as Clark making an observation of how his kids have changed since they first went on vacation which is funny because the kids have been played by four different actors two different one when they reunited 20 years later. Indeed, the kids are now adults, but still cast as late aged teens. The still gorgeous Ellen Griswold (the always alluring Beverly D'Angelo) doesn't think that Vegas is a perfect vacation spot but agrees to go anyway, and when they get there, they find that Vegas practically changes them.
Spoofing his image, Wayne Newton makes a play for D'Angelo, and while she certainly a fan she finds the whole Vegas lifestyle a bit too garish for her tastes. Rusty becomes addicted to the tables, particularly one where Wallace Shawn spins the wheel, insulting him every chance he gets. The kids get in over their heads by becoming involved with fast crowds, and cousin Eddie ends up being a complete jinx to Clark. It's up to the fed up Clark to round up his troops and get them back together as only a messed up man like he can.
"Holiday Road" returns one more time along with Christie Brinkley as the blonde in the convertible, this time with a twist as revealed on her license plate. It's sort of a pointless scene but funny in the way of continuity. There are a lot of genuinely funny scenes here, particularly their visit to the Hoover dam where Clark gets lost in the most auspicious of places. Clark also gets involved in a Siegfried and Roy act, rather sad in perspective of what occured with them later on.
I would have to say that this is the least funny of the vacation movies simply because of Quaid's excessive screen time. Cornball humor like he provides is fun in small doses (more if you're Percy Kilbride and Marjorie Main), and his attempts to make slob humor funny fails simply because cousin Eddie is extremely disgusting. As a parody, it is amusing, and while the Vegas lavish hotels and suites and various surroundings are luscious to look at, it's more a brochure of why not to go there or what to look out for to avoid. Around the same time this was released, Chase had a Vegas set guest spot on "The Nanny", perfect publicity for the film, but obviously, the audiences weren't thrilled by it because we didn't get another vacation for 20 more years after this.
A funny gag has Chevy Chase as Clark making an observation of how his kids have changed since they first went on vacation which is funny because the kids have been played by four different actors two different one when they reunited 20 years later. Indeed, the kids are now adults, but still cast as late aged teens. The still gorgeous Ellen Griswold (the always alluring Beverly D'Angelo) doesn't think that Vegas is a perfect vacation spot but agrees to go anyway, and when they get there, they find that Vegas practically changes them.
Spoofing his image, Wayne Newton makes a play for D'Angelo, and while she certainly a fan she finds the whole Vegas lifestyle a bit too garish for her tastes. Rusty becomes addicted to the tables, particularly one where Wallace Shawn spins the wheel, insulting him every chance he gets. The kids get in over their heads by becoming involved with fast crowds, and cousin Eddie ends up being a complete jinx to Clark. It's up to the fed up Clark to round up his troops and get them back together as only a messed up man like he can.
"Holiday Road" returns one more time along with Christie Brinkley as the blonde in the convertible, this time with a twist as revealed on her license plate. It's sort of a pointless scene but funny in the way of continuity. There are a lot of genuinely funny scenes here, particularly their visit to the Hoover dam where Clark gets lost in the most auspicious of places. Clark also gets involved in a Siegfried and Roy act, rather sad in perspective of what occured with them later on.
I would have to say that this is the least funny of the vacation movies simply because of Quaid's excessive screen time. Cornball humor like he provides is fun in small doses (more if you're Percy Kilbride and Marjorie Main), and his attempts to make slob humor funny fails simply because cousin Eddie is extremely disgusting. As a parody, it is amusing, and while the Vegas lavish hotels and suites and various surroundings are luscious to look at, it's more a brochure of why not to go there or what to look out for to avoid. Around the same time this was released, Chase had a Vegas set guest spot on "The Nanny", perfect publicity for the film, but obviously, the audiences weren't thrilled by it because we didn't get another vacation for 20 more years after this.