Vacation (2015) – review

Normally comedic movies get a pass from a lot of my criticism since comedy, as a genre itself, is incredibly subjective. Vacation, considers itself to be apart of a beloved franchise and wants to appear to stand-alone. It fails on both counts. The characters are grating and unlikable and the writing is stale and lifeless.

Grown up Rusty Griswold, played by Ed Helms, decides for a change of pace to take the family on a road trip from Chicago to California to visit Walley World just like his family did when he was a kid. His wife, Debbie, played by Christina Applegate, is unhappy and his sons are two horrible saps. The younger is a foul-mouthed bully while the older is a whiny intellectual who is always mocked. The boys are constantly fighting so he hopes that this trip will bring them all closer as a family.

I struggle to find anything good to say about this movie. It is devoid of originality and the characters feel like charm sponges, draining the scene of any interest or fun that could be had and leaving a husk remaining.  The movie actually tells the audience in an off-hand way that this movie is different from the original Vacation movie and that this one will stand on its own. That would be clever, if it wasn’t an outright lie.

Instead we are given scenes that are taken from the original but are wildly less funny since Ed Helms is not a leading man and his family is comprised of people you don’t want to see on screen. Scenes like:

-The Father showing everyone the crappy car’s features

- The redneck stealing from the family

- The car having an altercation with a semi-truck

-The dad’s angry blow out at the family

-The psychotic meltdown

-The car breakdown in the dessert

-The cute girl next to the car in a red Ferrari

-The misunderstanding at the pool

-The parents trying to make love but being interrupted

-Running at Wally World to the theme from Chariots of Fire

Between this unoriginal garbage is a heaping helping of poop and vomit jokes that would make any middle school student pleased.

Even when characters from the original like Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo show up it is only a grim reminder that we are watching something that doesn’t want to try very hard.  Maybe this would have worked better had it not had a beloved franchise attached to it. This movie depressed me because I enjoy the original John Hughes characters so much and to see them turned into such losers is really sad.

Vacation is not worth seeing. Watch the original movie. Hell, watch all of the original movies and they are wildly better than this. If it has Cousin Eddie in it, that is an even safer bet. This movie felt like a series of SNL throwaway skits. The jokes are obvious and juvenile. It will leave you angry and disappointed and generally you expect more out of your comedic movies.

Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil-review

For everyone who has seen the stereotypical horror movie, this is for you.  “Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil” takes the completely overdone story of college kids coming out to an isolated cabin in the woods to party and are killed and throws it out the window.  Much like“Cabin in the Woods” the movie is self-aware to a degree.  It knows that idea was done to death.

A group of college kids go out to the woods to party at a cabin.  They stop for gas and are met by the rustic looking Tucker, played by Alan Tudyk, and Dale, played by Tyler Labine, who upon first glance scare them.  We find out that Tucker and Dale are actually buying a vacation home to fix up in the woods nearby.  They go fishing in the same lake as the college kids who are swimming nearby and one of them is startled by Tucker and Dale and falls into the lake hitting her head on the rocks. They go to get her help and the college kids mistake them for kidnapping her and think they are homicidal maniacs.  The rest is a comedy of errors. 

The acting is great. Tucker and Dale are both loveable goofballs and the movie is really fun to watch.  The college kids are great at playing stupid stereotypes and everything that happens to them is a mix of dumb luck and their own fault. The gore is very over the top and it still doesn’t take away from the laughs.  In this movie it flips the usual heroes around so now the rednecks are the ones you root for and the college kids are the troublemakers.

There is a lot going for “Tucker and Dale Vs.Evil.” There are some plot holes that are strange but not too distracting from the fact you are watching something good.  If you get a chance to see this one I recommend it.  It’s a lot of fun and not so much scary as it is funny.  It at least had some new ideas to a tired concept.   

Evil Ed-review

“Evil Ed” is a 1997 Swedish horror comedy.  The tone is very similar to “Evil Dead” or “Dead Alive,” so if you’ve seen those you’ll at least know what to expect.  While some of the American dubbing seems a bit off at times it has an odd charm that a fan of cheesy cinema will easily dismiss.  There is a lot of fun satire and subtle references to other movies that make “Evil Ed” a pretty clever cult film. 

Ed is a cutter in the editing room of a studio.  He gets moved to horror movies much to his chagrin and he has to work with a very sleazy producer to edit the  “Loose Limbs” films.  The editing of horror movies slowly takes its toll on Ed as he begins hallucinating and having violent fantasies.  Will the movies inevitably turn Ed into a homicidal killer? 

The plot is ridiculous and fun and takes a good look into the satirical world of film editing, pre-computer.  The hallucinations are funny and range from a bizarre gremlin in the fridge to racing Satan to hell.  The acting during this is pretty comical and the American dubbing seems to be along the same vein. You can tell they had a lot of fun with the making of this movie.

As a whole “Evil Ed” is an enjoyable movie.  It’s gory, it’s vulgar at times, but it also has moments of hilarity and great satirical wit.  If you can look past the comedic dubbing you might enjoy “Evil Ed” a lot more.  It’s a strange little movie that is certain to rise in popularity with all its campy cult charm.  Give it a watch if you are in the mood for something unique and fun.

The Cabin in the Woods-review

“The Cabin in the Woods” takes a trite idea and really gives it a unique look and clever spin.  There are so many movies that use the typical story about college students that go to a remote place and get slaughtered.  The fun part comes from watching the twists and turns that make it all come together in a truly awesome and Lovecraftain tale.

The story follows five typical college students, which reminded me of Scooby and the gang.  They go up to the mountains to party at what looks like the cabin from “The Evil Dead.”   Little do they know, there are technicians watching their every move. There is certainly something more sinister going on. The question is, will the young co-eds live to find out what it is? 

The most annoying thing this movie did was create a stereotypical stoner and slut character.  These two characters were so stupidly by-the-book, it seemed out of place for this movie. This is the sort of eye-rolling crap that you’d think a self-aware movie would be able to work around.  However, it falls into the same trite trap that all the other horror movies before it have fallen.  It’s not the worst thing though since these characters are only a couple of ingrown hairs on the glorious mane of an otherwise fun movie.

The movie is written really well.  The dialogue is quick and exactly what you’d expect from a Joss Whedon film.  There are lots of themes of other movies that you will catch if you happen to be a horror buff as well.  There are subtle and not so subtle references to “The Evil Dead”, “Hellraiser” and “The Grudge”.  If you are a reader of H.P. Lovecraft, this movie is right up your alley.

The acting is okay.  For the most part it was enough to get by with the acting of relative newcomers and Chris Hemworth. As college kids, I found them to get quickly annoying.  However, that might have been how they were written, as this movie does seem to be very self-aware.  The characters that steal the show are the technicians Richard Sitterson, played by Richard Jenkins, and Steve Hadley played by, Bradley Whitford.  Their dialogue is top notch and they play so well off one another. The movie could have been all about them and still been great.  They take the mood of moderate thrills and make it a comedy in a split second. It really makes for a fun bit of mood transition, though at times it takes you out of the movie.

In truth, the thing that I think hinders this movie might be the effects.  The CGI, at some points, is pretty bad.  It would have been nice if they decided to go ahead and work out the details and perhaps spend more of the budget on effects because some of the creative ideas they were clearly going for are borderline genius.  The ending is also something I would have probably altered a tad.  However, that is just nitpicking that I won’t go into here. 

The fact of the matter is “The Cabin in the Woods” takes one of the most overused ideas in horror today and adds a dash of the mythos of Lovecraft that makes this story both funny and creepy.  Is it scary?  Not really.  The scales certainly fall more towards the side of dark comedy. Still, it’s completely worth seeing and I recommend it highly.  It’s fun and it shows a lot of creativity and love of the subject matter.