National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (DVD)

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The four National Lampoon "Vacation" comedies with Chevy Chase saw their ups and downs, as a series of motion pictures and within each film. "Christmas Vacation," from 1989, the third in the sequence, is no exception. As a movie it marks an up turn; within the movie itself, however, it lurches violently between high points and low.

"National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" follows the same basic pattern as the original "Vacation" movie, only this time the Griswold family isn't on the road anywhere but settled comfortably down to spend a traditional, old-fashioned Christmas at home. Well, at least Clark, the father, is determined to have an old-fashioned Christmas, and his wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) is her usual reluctant, passive self. The kids (newcomers to the series Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki), as always, could care less. From there we get everything going wrong that could go wrong, Clark's typically obsessive behavior, and his inevitable breakdown. If it sounds familiar, the script was again written by John Hughes, who, besides writing the first two "Vacation" films, did "Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Home Alone," and "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles."

The movie is a roller-coaster ride of hilarity, poignancy, vulgarity, and just plain dumbness. One thing to be said about it, though, is that things are never dull, for good or for bad. If the film had maintained a more consistent level of humor throughout, it might have become a perennial Christmas favorite in everybody's household, something like "Christmas Story." As it stands, even with its mild PG-13 rating, it contains enough coarse material to warrant it advisable viewing only for adults or late teens; an irony, really, considering that most of the content that makes it objectionable seems to be aimed primarily at young teens and adolescents. It's a film full of such contradictions, making it hard to review, let alone to recommend.

The story concerns a nice, cozy vacation at home with the Griswolds. Naturally, they're all lunatics. Sorry; dysfunctional, to be politically correct. OK, you're right, lunatics. Clark insists on inviting his parents and in-laws (John Randolph, Diane Ladd, E.G. Marshall, and Doris Roberts) to Christmas dinner, too, and then their demented Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) shows up unannounced with his brood, and a maniacal squirrel invades the premises, and we get a kidnapping, and then a S.W.A.T team raid, and, as you can see, things get out of hand pretty quickly by the last half of the picture. A shame, really; it starts out so well.

The first half, especially, offers some sidesplitting moments: Clark getting his car stuck under a huge, moving truck; the unfolding of a monster Christmas tree; Clark's flirtations with a pretty department-store clerk; Clark's climbing the roof to put up Christmas lights; the lighting of the house with 25,000 imported Italian twinkle bulbs; and some very funny slapstick sight gags.

In contrast, there are the abuses: The two sets of unfunny parents, supposedly counterpoints for Clark's zaniness but generally just pains in the butt; Clark's hectic, raucous, but ultimately boring sled ride; Cousin Eddie's continual barrage of grossness, culminating in the emptying of his RV's septic tank into the Griswold's gutter; a dog named Snots, for obvious reasons; a pair of snooty, yuppie neighbors; Clark's ultimate breakdown, complete with a seemingly endless string of profanities; and the waste of two great performers, the usually reliable William Hickey and the adorable Mae Questel as Uncle Lewis and Aunt Bethany. Questel's role is particularly galling because she was the original voice for both Betty Boop and Olive Oyl, and here she gets virtually nothing to do to show off her famous vocal or comic talents.