In the Chevy Chase filmography, which includes soaring highs, middling material, overlooked failures and god-awful bombs (I won’t name names when in reference to said scale; well, okay, Modern Problems is awesome), National Lampoon’s Vacation series certainly fills in every facet of the scale. The first Vacation is seen as the true classic of the series and certainly holds up to repeat viewings to this day. Christmas Vacation, while not the brightest of the bunch, certainly has a cult following surrounding it. And then there’s the bastard child of the series: European Vacation. Most people regard European Vacation as ranking somewhere between Funny Farm and Cops and Robbersons. At least most people had the best intentions when they forgot the very existence of Vegas Vacation.

While I don’t necessarily get along with the general viewing public, I’m going to have to join them on this one: National Lampoon’s European Vacation is awful.

Where did it go wrong anyway? Harold Ramis (the director of the first Vacation) was off the sequel, but the project was in the capable hands of Amy Heckerling, who has managed to direct a memorable movie or two. And while he would come to be known as living, breathing, human offal in his later career, in the ‘80s, John Hughes was well respected and sometimes rightfully so. Let’s not forget Chevy Chase’s deadpan delivery that managed to convince audiences that he was both truly insane, yet absolutely human in the first Vacation.

But sometimes things don’t come out as well as hoped.

Coming off like a terrible rip-off of a Savage Steve Holland movie (despite the fact that Better Off Dead… was released in 1985 as well), European Vacation starts off with the Griswold family winning the grand prize on the hit TV Game show Pig In A Poke, which requires families to dress up as pigs and answer trivia questions – I don’t know, I got distracted at the overly gruesome moment where John Astin latches onto Dana Hill’s contorted, Jerri Blank-esque face like a lamprey eel.

Ugh.

So Pig In A Poke sends the Griswolds, Clark, Ellen, Audrey and Rusty, on a trip across Europe, starting with London, then going through France, Germany and finally Italy. What follows is a continuous stream of skits involving slapstick and sight gags you can see coming from a mile away. In fact, I’m finding it quite hard to write anything beyond that summary – European Vacation barely has any storyline to begin with. You have your cheap ugly American satire; clueless oafs who suspect that they’ll be able to communicate with foreigners better if they talk slower. And then there’s the exploitation of European stereotypes which I’m certain were already stale in 1985. Yes, the British are overly polite, the French are mean to anyone outside of their ancestry, and the Germans sure love lederhosen, beer and violence – did you expect anything different?

After a straight hour of this tomfoolery (which includes knocking down Stonehenge - ho ho!) we finally get around to the only plot found in the film’s entire 93-minute running time: the Griswolds end up in Italy and try to get a refund for their stolen traveler’s checks, and are quickly given three times the money they claim along with a car which happens to have a man stuck in the trunk. Turns out the nice man who refunded the family’s money is actually a thief and the man in the trunk is now their hostage.

So when the thief finally gets around to tracking down the Griswold family in hopes of cashing in on the man in the trunk, things get sticky when he has to take Ellen hostage and – arrrgh, who cares? Dear God, this movie sucks. I mean, I’ll admit that Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo and even the obnoxious offspring manage to play the material straight and I’m very thankful for that, but why bother? The script is a mess, completely unfocused and plain not funny. Even Chase on the commentary says that European Vacation isn’t as awful as he originally thought, and that’s being kind. So let’s pretend that this film never existed. In fact, stop reading this review right now; National Lampoon’s European Vacation is officially non-canon in cinema history. Thank me later.

Presentation
Ordinary on all fronts. Warner provides a mono track that comes through a tad muffled though never hard to understand, while the anamorphic widescreen image is flat, slightly grainy (surprisingly so in the opening and in the stock footage) and with a few scratches – but the image is generally sharp and the colors come off well. It’s a decent presentation of an unremarkable ‘80s film.

Extras
Aside from a trailer (being an accurate representation of the film, it’s not funny either), all that’s left is the commentary track featuring Chevy Chase, and boy is it a bit dire. Admitting that he originally thought the film was terrible, Chase indulges a little and points out all of the moments he thinks work, all of them I disagree with. When not talking about the bits of wardrobe he still has stuck in his closet, Chase is quite silent throughout the film. Maybe if he was stuck in a room with Beverly D’Angelo there might have been something, but Chase winging it along is just dry.

The Bottom Line
Seriously guys, I’d really like to stop talking about this movie. Is that okay? It’s… It’s just not funny. It hurts to think about. I’ve had a headache for two days straight and I’m blaming it on this movie and not all the pills I’ve been taking. Are there not better things to waste your time watching? I wash my hands of this subject.