'Vegas Vacation' joins the undistinguished ranks of such oddities as 'Cheech & Chong: Still Smokin'' and 'Trail of the Pink Panther' as films that barely qualify to be called movies. In each case, there was no compelling reason for the movie to have been made in the first place, and in each case, the final product ends up looking and sounding like exactly that, a product. Films such as these are not only awful, they are hard to concentrate on. There is the feeling when watching them that talented people should have known better, rather than signing away their reputations for a paycheck. Here, we get Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, and Randy Quaid, the principal stars of the hitherto entertaining 'Vacation' series reprising their roles for said paycheck. The film gets off to a good, fastpaced start, with things happening so quickly that we almost don't realize the movie has run out of gags and ideas by the time the Griswolds get to Las Vegas. Which is maybe ten minutes into the movie. From there, 'Vegas Vacation' becomes nothing more than a glorified travelogue for the famed gambling city. I honestly asked myself at one point, as Chevy Chase pops up during a performance by Siegfield & Roy in one of many laughless sequences, who produced this movie? The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce? It's hard not to get that impression as the characters wander through the various hotels, show venues, casinos, and other touristy sites to no apparent good purpose, other than to showcase, well, Las Vegas. The scene at Hoover Dam is another prime example. It is an interminable scene with no laughs. Throughout the movie, Chevy Chase is given nothing funny to do, and he reciprocates by appearing to show up for his parts between holes of golf. (And he looks nothing like the trim, tuxedoed pic on the movie poster. They must have airbrushed forty pounds off him.) Beverly D'Angelo comes off best in her dalliances with Wayne Newton. The movie plods along, each scene as depressingly unfunny as the one preceding it. Surprisingly, 'Vegas Vacation' was fairly successful at the box office, taking in almost $40 million (it COULDN'T have cost much to make.) Which meant there was yet another chapter in the saga, the Chase-less, awkwardly titled, 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2- Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure.'
Review of Vegas Vacation
