National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Simply A Masterpiece

Beautiful, moving film.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I hated this film. It's disturbing and hard to watch, not funny. It's a torture film. Most of the characters are extremely unlikable, but I felt that the main character is too sympathetic for the movie to work in the least bit. I felt so bad for Clark because of how much he goes through and how much crap he takes from people. The best scene by far was when he stood up to the obnoxious characters, because I sat through the entire film waiting for that to happen. The cinematography, color, and music (by David Lynch's composer, Angelo Badalamenti) were all good. It is not an absolute waste, but it's a frustrating experience. Certainly not worth a watch. I fail to understand the popularity.

Despite being a fan of National Lampoon's "Vacation" and "European Vacation" movies, for whatever reason I had not sat down and watched this Christmas edition of the series. I had expectations for high humor coming into the viewing, but was left with the bad taste of a series starting to turn stale.For a basic plot summary, this movie sees Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase), wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), and kids Audrey (Juliette Lewis) and Rusty (Johnny Galecki) hosting "the relatives" for Christmas. This obviously includes Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and Co. as well. Per the typical formula, everything goes to hell-in-a-hand-basket despite the best intents of Clark.While the first two Vacation-series movies seem fresh and genuinely funny, "Christmas Vacation" seems stale and overbearing (like all the comedy jokes/situations are "reaches"). Sure, there are some legitimately laugh-out-loud moments in the film, but mostly it falls pretty flat.The main reason for the disappointing effort here is the casting changes. Lewis and Galecki, while both proved afterwards to be pretty fair actors in their own right, are terrible for the roles of Audrey/Rusty (key characters that provide so much of the humor in the earlier films). Maybe it was just the fact that the "original" Russ/Audrey can never quite be topped.Thus, while I was hoping for great things from this experience, I can say now that I won't be watching it next Xmas season (or maybe any further out, either). It just fails to capture that quirky sense of humor that its predecessors nailed so succinctly.

This is a fun little holiday classic and maybe the best National Lampoons movie out of the lot. Anyway, it is about a father trying too hard to give his family the perfect Xmas experience but fails miserly at it and many full belly laughs are the result. The film is charming even if it doesn't seem as funny as it was when you were a kid. But whatever, usually Xmas comedies are a fail; Office Xmas Party, I'm looking at you. I hope Hollywood never remakes this.. but I would be surprised if they did remake it just out of spite and to grab people's goats and run them around the mud a bit. You know the score. But yeah, this is a solid family film.

The Griswold family's plans for a big family Christmas predictably turn into a big disaster. Although National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is still a very enjoyable and sweet comedy with some pretty good performances by Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo the humor doesn't hold up really well in some certain scenes i mean it will still make you laugh and like i said the cast is doing a great job but the movie doesn't hold up really well when it comes to the comedy stuff it's kinda cheesy, now movies like Home Alone and Home Alone 2 will always be hilarious. Overall National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is still a great and enjoyable film.