VACATION (2015)

To scrutinize what went irredeemably wrong with the latest Vacation reboot is to pinpoint exactly where comedy went awry in the mid-90’s. The Farrelly Brothers came to providence and their movies slathered both gross-out, scatological humor with pathos in equal measure (and to wondrous effect in There’s Something About Mary, Kingpin and Dumb and Dumber). However, every success is the surrogate father of bastardized imitations.

2015’s Vacation is a mean-spirited, consistently unfunny copycat of that era where comedy reached farther down for the gag reflex than the rib tickle. How else to explain the rampant pedophilia jokes (Norman Reedus materializes in a cameo as a scruffy sexual predator who lures children into his truck with a teddy bear) and gay panic scenarios about James (Skyler Gisondo), Rusty’s (a mugging Ed Helms) introspective son.

To their credit, Jonathan M. Goldstein and John Francis Daley don’t waste any time before delving right into comically bankrupt material with an opening montage of random vacation photos over a Holiday Road redux. Rusty’s pubescent son Kevin (Steele Stebbins) is a putrid caricature whose sole purpose is the shock value of a youngster spouting expletives and being an Omen doppelganger to his older, emasculated sibling. You’ll want to whisk him off the screen and you’ll quickly denounce Rusty and Debbie (Christina Applegate) as abhorrent parents for raising and placating such a prick.

Each joke is accompanied by a painfully obvious execution. For example, Rusty brags about the sensor system in his Prancer but it quickly malfunctions when he wedges his arm in the door. Rinse and repeat the Murphy’s Law ad nauseum. We could realistically empathize with the Griswolds when they accidentally took a detour in the 1983 classic or when they skulked for miles in search of the seasonal tree in Christmas Vacation. Nothing is remotely corporeal or grounded when they frolic in raw sewage or nearly descend down a waterfall.

A stab at meta references (ala the infinitely superior 21 and 22 Jump Street) to James not “hearing about the original vacation” backfire because the phraseology doesn’t flow in the context. As Stone Crandell, the Adonis husband of Audrey (Leslie Mann), a stranded Chris Hemsworth is equipped with a gargantuan phallic prop and faucet analogies which are pretty haggard traits for jocular possibilities.

For mercy’s sake, Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo reprise their roles in a rather dejected capacity. Chase augments his Pierce wackiness from Community which is a complete disgrace to the nurturing Clark Griswold we all knew. Glimpsing Chevy fumble with a guitar is as unappealing a sight of forsaken instincts as Jerry Lewis in Hardly Working.

Perhaps, an Audrey-centric sequel might’ve been more fecund terrain since female-driven comedies like Spy and Trainwreck have done blockbuster business and garnered critical acclaim. Alas, we’re being suffocated by this unholy spawn. The ratio hasn’t swung in a continuation of the franchise’s favor. Time to repossess the Truckster and condemn Walley World as a contaminated wasteland.

Rating: .5 out of 5

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION

If the dreary European Vacation proved anything, it’s that the Griswolds are at optimal dysfunction when they are stateside which explains why Christmas Vacation is a mirthful, gregarious return-to-form for the franchise. While the ensemble of grandparents is an underwritten afterthought, Chase doesn’t buckle under the herniated pressure and this is only secondary to the first film for quality’s sake.

Of the paramount improvements is the reprise of Cousin Eddie and honestly, Randy Quaid plunders a majority of the yuk-yuks with his sweetly panhandling act. It’s difficult not to snicker when Eddie misconstrues Clark’s “heart bigger than his brain” insult as a compliment or when Eddie is disseminating his septic tank into the gutter because the “shitter was full”.

Chase exhibits a naturalistic chemistry with the ravishing D’Angelo but his security blanket are side-splitting scenes of quietly seething resentment with Quaid (“Anything I can do for ya?…Drive you out to the middle of nowhere, leave you for dead?”). John Hughes bores straight to the irritants of the season (ex. The Christmas lights assembly, gift-wrapping, the tree selection, etc.).

Personally, this might be the funniest performance by Chevy in the whole series. His innuendo-laden Freudian slips with a department store employee and his rooftop physical comedy are all pitched perfectly. His finest moment is Clark’s breathlessly verbose tirade against his cold-blooded boss (Brian Doyle Murray) after he supposedly receives his bonus check. Chase seizes the George Carlin-esque monologue and recites it in an outburst that is both senseless and achingly human.

Next door to the Griswolds is the zenithal target for Clark’s Murphy Law: two postmodern yuppies without a family to gather around the fireplace (the enjoyably stiff, Type-A foils Julia Louis Dreyfus and Nicholas Guest). The height of madcap lunacy is the squirrel chase and Jeremiah Chechik displays a knack for Mel Brooks delirium with Angelo Badalamenti’s score as an impish companion to the wildly overamped proceedings.

Today, this is deservedly lauded as a perennial holiday classic and it is repeated on television stations. For all intensive purposes, Christmas Vacation overshadows the 1983 paradigm in most viewers’ memories. If this had concluded in a trilogy, it would’ve been a hermetic franchise with terrific bookends. Purposelessly the Griswolds would sojourn to Las Vegas in their next disenchanting add-on.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Odd that the theme song for these films is “Holiday Road” and so far in the series, they haven’t acknowledged any holidays except for the yuletide season. Much to my chagrin, the Pig in a Poke jingle is catchy. However, the first signpost of errantly unsavory jollity in the inferior, redundantly lewd European Vacation is when the host John Astin passionately kisses Audrey (the nasally Dana Hill) in a distinctly predatory, creepy way.

As before, Chevy is the lifeblood of the franchise with his oblivious Father Knows Best routine. Amy Heckerling is clearly a novice at farce insomuch as she sprains herself early on with a botched Looney Tunes visual gag where Clark’s face is nearly cauterized by a BBQ flame. The grill flames are too low and the cartoonish soot on Clark is not broad enough. She simply cannot grasp slapstick for a supposedly hip female director.

The daydream of Ellen and Clark cavorting with the Royal monarchy is bizarre because it hardly broaches a punchline. Same goes for Rusty’s (the unsightly Jason Lively) nightclub fantasy. Audrey’s nightmare of body dysmorphia is a declawed remix on the Mr. Creosote skit. To top it off, the Sound of Music parody would be more apropos for a lame Family Guy episode.

The notion of the reverse passenger-driver seating and careening on the wrong side of the road is a more affable observation than outright hysterical. More than anything, the Griswolds are no longer the quintessential family; they’re the ugly-American archetypes. Clark’s tour guide factoids about the Stonehenge and Buckingham Palace are typically oafish.

This subsequently is the only theatrical sequel which doesn’t contain Randy Quaid’s buoyantly bawdy trailer-trash Cousin Eddie and it definitely suffers for it. In his place is the recurring character of Eric Idle’s The Bike Rider who is the laughingstock of the Griswolds’ recklessly dunderheaded streak (the geyser of blood squirting from his wrist (“Just a flesh wound”) is blissfully funny gallows humor on the wavelength of Monty Python).

How could John Hughes the originator of the series be so dreadfully wrongheaded on this international trip? The potshots at transatlantic culture are sordidly mean-spirited (the snobbish French waiter), it doesn’t possess warm-hearted pathos beneath its breastplate and there is no destination point for the Griswolds, just a caterpillar of sloppy episodes. Already in their sophomore slump, this could’ve been the cessation of the Griswolds’  travelogue monkeyshines.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE- GHOST PROTOCOL

Of the films thus far, Ghost Protocol is the most giddy and exuberant. The first film was a Tom Clancy potboiler. The second film was an operatic ballet. The third was a gritty crime drama. Part 4 is a buoyant theme park ride. The detonation in Russia is disaster porn without the guilt of Soviet Union casualties. With his background in Pixar animation, director Brad Bird can storyboard crackerjack set pieces and this fourth entry is chockfull of them.

Despite his oeuvre primarily in non-live-action endeavors, Bird doesn’t flaunt the laws of physics. It genuinely appears that Cruise narrowly dodges a photorealistic, somersaulting vehicle during a sandstorm collision. The injection of humor stems from Pegg’s asides and Brandt’s (Jeremy Renner) squeamish resolve with gravity-defying tasks like the magnetic suit gag.

In spite of early canards that Renner might be the newfangled torchbearer of the series due to the waning star power of the Cruise, Ethan is still the de facto hero and he is in full-throttle superstar mode. For all the derring-do around him, Tom Cruise must be exalted for his daredevil insistence on performing his own stunts.

He must be an adrenaline junkie and thrive on the precipice of oblivion because he looks both exhilarated and clammy as he sprawls up, down and across the Burj Hotel in Dubai without the assistance of stunt doubles or CGI. When Ethan’s epoxy gloves malfunction, it tickles the glands inside the viewers and his safety is suddenly not irrefutable. It recreates the stimulus of vertigo and Cruise is our conduit for the IMAX-scale whirligig.

Of the contraptions, the portable silk-screen is my choice for most brilliant. In the Kremlin, Ethan and Benji must surreptitiously saunter in an archive room without alerting a guard. They slowly wander down the hallway with the screen that is equipped with a 3D camera for a depth-of-field reproduction of the backdrop. It recaptures the quiescent suspense of the vault scene in De Palma’s predecessor without being a foolhardy rehash.

After the bombardment of trailers for Rogue Nation, the cliffhanger message insinuates the looming doom of the Syndicate which is a tie-in to the fifth film. For the moment though, Ghost Protocol is unique from the Bourne films because it isn’t beholden to solemnity. Bird slashes the brake line and his chapter is an irresistibly cheerful romp that doesn’t buckle under the pressure of most fourth films.

Rating: 4 out of 5

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3

J.J. Abrams attempts to tether Mission: Impossible with both forlorn heart and continuity neither of which is required. This series of films are episodic by design and can be stripped down to the elemental pleasures of globe-trotting yarns. For a film with a skid-row in media res torture opening, the film’s tonal shifts from morose to rip-roaring (ex. The Vatican City infiltration) are a tad jarring.

Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman dabble with widening our scope of interest into the IMF team but Maggie Q, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and even Ving Rhames are quickly overshadowed by Simon Pegg’s sublime comic relief Benji Dunn. The aesthetic that Abrams elects is a grungy 24 vibe with the spycraft occurring in dark, silhouetted corridors and filmed with unsteady handheld camerawork.

In my humble opinion, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Owen Davien might be one of my favorite screen villains ever. He speaks in dispassionate tones as if he doesn’t indulge in coffee talk with his captors. His placidly contemptuous attitude towards the composed Ethan is a beautiful counterpoint. He is forthright and matter-of-fact with his threats towards Ethan’s spouse Julia (Michelle Monaghan) and there isn’t an indication that he would be remorseful about killing her on a whim (“Whoever she is, I’m gonna find her and I’m gonna hurt her”).

I admire the notion of Ethan’s dalliance with Julia than the rudderless execution of it. The scene where Ethan discreetly tells Julia that he must furlough on an assignment is poorly hampered by flagrant green screen and a stillborn tempo. It’s the third film in a franchise with no endgame in sight. Why belabor Ethan’s unfounded desire to retire?

Since the second film abused the latex-mask convention, Abrams intelligently enriches the third film with a painstaking glimpse into how the doppelganger masks are molded and the vocal-cord synchronicity, are achieved. For me, the apex of nerve-tingling thrills is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge siege where Davien is salvaged by his operatives and Cruise is nearly flanked by drone missiles. Cruise is clearly jostled by wires into a car in the proximity during the impact and his stuntwork is peerless in its verisimilitude.

Of the CIA overlords who have disbanded the IMF, Laurence Fishburne’s Theodore Brassel might be the most intimidating in its patriotism and written with the most literary prose (“And he remains invisible. He’s a goddamn invisible man. I mean Wells, not Ellison.”). The MacGuffin (the Rabbit’s Foot in this case) is an almost inessential tool for the plot but that doesn’t prevent Mission: Impossible III from being a visceral neutron bomb.

Rating: 3 out of 5

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2

John Woo has been and will always be one of the action directors that I genuflect to. His movies are hyperkinetic extravaganzas with dollops of elegiac poetry (the dove trademark, the slow-motion theatrics, etc.). This is the cardinal reason I was eagerly anticipating this sequel and for what it’s worth, Mission: Impossible 2 is a jaw-dropping, flashy Heroic Bloodshed masterpiece.

The terrorist takeover of the 747 is massively irreverent. When Biocyte engineer Dr. Nekhorvich (Rade Serbedzija) is pummeled in the jugular by “Ethan” and it is revealed to be arch-nemesis Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) in a latex mask, it’s a shattering shock-to-the-system. This gimmick is reiterated again later and once again it swiftly pulls out the rug from under the audience.

Of the remixes of Lalo Schifrin’s immortal main theme, Limp Bizkit’s thrashing version might be my favorite. It quickens the pulse immediately once the data-encrypted sunglasses explode. This is first installment to introduce the hair-raising mainstay of Cruise performing his own perilous stunts such as the mountain solo climbing without a safety net below him. While certainly awe-inspiring, the motorcycle finale is a nail-biter with a casually cool Cruise sidling next to his bike at top speed and firing with expert marksmanship via his rearview mirror.

Thandie Newton’s cat burglar, Nyah, is a sultry femme fatale and she can be aptly described as a more adroit Bond girl. Her cat-and-mouse car chase in Seville is coyly hormonal and her erogenous relationship with Ethan is a cue to Hitchcock’s 1946 Notorious. The chemistry between Cruise and Newton is high-wattage and it anchors the film with an impassioned conflict-of-interest when Nyah is inoculated with the Chimera virus.

Chinatown author Robert Towne isn’t a doltish hack in terms of banter and his screenplay for Mission: Impossible 2 is replete with sly witticisms (“This isn’t Mission: Difficult Mr. Hunt. This is Mission: Impossible. Difficult should be a walk in the park for you.”). Due to this reason, I’ve never been craving wanton destruction during the midpoint stretch where Nyah is infiltrating Ambrose’s compound.

It’s a satisfyingly slow-burn build-up to an absolutely propulsive ending where Cruise and Scott leap from their bikes to pulverize each other to near smithereens on a sandy beach dune. For these eclectic positive qualities, I always found this second enterprise to be the excitingly scorching black sheep of the series with dynamism to spare.

Rating: 4 out of 5

With Tom Cruise committing his suicide to celluloid (or digital) again for Rogue Nation on July 31st, I thought it would be appropriate to dissect the entries leading up to his latest untenable assignment.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
It probably seemed unlikely in 1996 that Tom Cruise, one of the most lionized box office stars, would saddle himself to a franchise when he had a veritable smorgasbord of projects to choose from. And yet five films later with rumors of a sixth installment already unspooling at Paramount Pictures, the espionage brand is at its pinnacle of popularity.

For the first outing, Brian De Palma is the helmsman and it incontrovertibly emblazoned with his hallmarks. A dinner rendezvous where Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is accused of being a double agent is framed with traditional Dutch angles. More than once, he shifts to his most characteristic, neoclassical shot- the POV of a predator in pursuit of their quarry.

De Palma doesn’t overreach into his Hitchcockian worship on this film although the amount of double and triple crosses become absolutely absurd. While it is culpable for the attributes that are synonymous with Mission: Impossible (the latex masks, the gadgetry, the team disavowal), it is also the most tedious of the bunch. Scenes of high-wire tension like the aforementioned combustible-gum escape are showstoppers but they are diamonds hidden within the almost somnambulistic pace and contrivances.

On top of that, Cruise hadn’t quite polished his dashing action chops yet and he often comes across as smarmy in his NOC exchanges with Max (the coquettish cougar Vanessa Redgrave). Judging from these past few paragraphs, it could be construed that I was underwhelmed by this preliminary adventure. On the contrary, the film is redeemed immeasurably by two sequences that are categorized in the annals of action movie history.

The first is the crisply executed harness stunt where Ethan is suspended in a temperature-and-volume-garrisoned room where the slightest sound or rise in heat could trigger an alarm. De Palma wisely ratchets the breathlessness to nearly exhausting lengths with complications from a rat in the ventilation system to a bead of sweat off Ethan’s glass. The second is the Channel Tunnel chase which is still dazzling in its breakneck speed and rear projection for the train.

Yes, it’s mildly disenchanting that the team is dispatched early on (Emilio Estevez’s tech guy Jack Harmon would’ve been an amusingly wiseacre recurring character) and the murder mystery is an inscrutable web of deceit. Nevertheless, the film is urbane, moderately engrossing entertainment of the highest caliber and it spawned the modern-day spy genre.
Rating: 3 out of 5