allyatherton What happens when a moron takes a road trip around Europe.Starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Dana Hill and Jason Lively.Written by John Hughes and Robert Klane,Directed by Amy Heckerling.I chose this oldie to watch on New Year's Eve with my family.It's a fun movie and kept us entertained while we waited for Big Ben to chime in the new year. We all had a good chuckle and I think we all enjoyed it. I don't know what was funnier, the script or the eighties clothes!A fun way to see in the New Year,7/10

Mr-Fusion Despite the dumbing-down of nearly every aspect of the original movie, "European Vacation" looks and feels today like the stuff of mid-'80s cable. You know the kind; that movie you bump into on HBO on a Sunday afternoon, and stick with. That's not a feeling you get everyday, especially with a 30 year-old movie you've just recently seen for the first time.As a sequel, it's not a patch on the original; the kids are inconsistent, the family's unbelievably hapless and the jokes don't work. But it's a product of the Reagan '80s and there's some charm in that respect. It's good for a few chuckles, but for my money, an angry Dana Hill steals the show.5/10

eric262003 In 1983, "National Lampoon's Vacation" was commercial success. The slapstick comical elements marked a positive outlook on the Griswolds as they became America's most beloved dysfunctional family. So instead of resting on their laurels for at least three or four years for a possible sequel, Warner Brothers decided to bring them back to the screen two years too early with "National Lampoon's European Vacation". After winning a game show hosted by John Astin ("Addams Family's Gomez Addams), the Griswolds win a trip to Europe as they embark on several misadventures as the explore the vast landscapes and the cultural settings for them. Sure like the other "Vacation" series, the plot is very thin, but the story itself was very inferior to its predecessor and the laughs were blatantly pedestrian and aside from that the characters also felt jilted as they went from the typical unlucky family to just plain old American idiots that give the wrong impression that Americans are ignorant to European culture. It didn't help that all the performers returned for the sequel, as Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo return as Clark and Ellen Griswold, however when Anthony Michael Hall was asked to reprise his Rusty Griswold character, he rebuffed and chose to do the 1980's cult classic "Weird Science". They didn't bother asking Dana Barron if she wants to reprise the Audrey Griswold character. They hired new performers for the kids. Jason Lively was not very good in his role as Rusty as he comes across as goofy, awkward and over-the-top with his perverted ways which comes off more stupid than comical. Dana Hill was a better replacement for Audrey than Dana Barron because there is more depth to her character in spite of repetitively lamenting over abandoning her new boyfriend, Jack (William Zabka). Chase goes a bit beyond the role of Clark here as the somewhat easily disgruntled father, here as Clark he comes across as a complete moron who can't do anything right and seems to cause destruction towards everything he touches and everyone around him feels his wrath. D'Angelo meanwhile stays persistent and didn't change that much in the movie as the level-headed matriarch trying to keep Sparky and the kids from insanity. Eric Idle as talented as he is for comedy has a very thankless role as an unfortunate Englishman that the Griswolds keep running over. It's never explained how he always runs into them in England, France and Italy, the irony itself is quite disturbing. What hurt this film badly was that comedy director the late Harold Ramis was too busy starring in "Ghostbusters" that he wasn't reached to direct. So instead Amy Heckerling who was still living on the coattails of the cult classic "Fast times at Ridgemont High" took over the director's chair. Heckerling's flair of comedy seems more concrete, which sadly takes over from the craziness from the over "Vacation" films. The fantasy sequences in the film work pretty good, however, I too felt it was inspired by other bodies of work Heckerling has done before or some other project she had in mind.I'm not playing the blame game entirely on Miss Heckerling as John Hughes returns to the scene as the scriptwriter, however I think there was some dispute that erupted as Mr. Hughes must have walked out at some point because there are a lot of surreal slapstick moments that doesn't feel like the John Hughes films we're all familiar with. The first "Vacation" film was funny because the situations faced by the Griswolds are something we could get the gist of. The humour delivered here comes off clichéd, and borderline tasteless. The silliness can be quite cringing with its racist overtones that the humour can be very disturbing at times. Are British people always this nice and genteel all the time? Are the French always dismissive and rude? Are Germans always aggressive and stiff? The scenes that made me laugh are scenes that had similarities to the ones from "Vacation". When the Griswalds interact among themselves the comedy comes across nicely. But when they're interacting with foreign policies it's actually poorly executed. The ending of this film was too rushed and also quite uninteresting you would miss the ending even if it came out to bite you. Aside from that I thought that this movie deserved an R rating rather than a PG-13. There's a lot of swearing, nudity and a myriad of hedonistic scenes that go beyond a PG-13 film. Several of the swearing was dubbed to avoid it from being an R rated movie, just in case you invite the young kiddies to see this film. Better yet, avoid the kids from seeing this movie and rent "Christmas Vacation" instead. There's foul language, but very minimal and used for more comic effect. I was a bit appalled that the family's last name was Griswald in this movie instead of the normal spelling Griswold. It wasn't the downfall for Miss Heckerling as she went on to direct the 1989 film "Look Who's Talking" while that same year Chase, D'Angelo and Hughes collaborated to make the far superior "Christmas Vacation". Even though this movie wasn't the best addition to the Vacation series it wasn't a complete failure and if you could refrain from taking this film seriously or offensively, it can be quite enjoyable.

Der_Schnibbler Stick with the Christmas one and you'll be all right. This one was atrocious. Unimaginative, boring, repetitive, predictable. Chase is in good form as always, but there's little he can do with such a dumb script. Same for the wife. The son is just passable and the girl who plays the daughter... oh my dear lord.. I have never seen such an off- putting creature in my life. She looks like a pig, especially when seen from the side.The only thing I liked was the film's comparison of Americans with swine. (In the beginning of the film, the Griswold's are encouraged by a TV audience to "be a pig.") I suppose that's why they casted that disgusting thing as the daughter, who is supposed to be playing a teenager but looks like she's nearly forty. They also did a good job of showing the utter ignorance and degeneration of American parents, even back in '85: in a beginning scene, the piglet daughter's boyfriend is over and they're down each other's throats in front of the parents. What kind of a emasculated little moron of a "father" allows his teenage piglet this behaviour?An American one, I guess.