milo bloom

I think that's it. A lot of my vacations as a kid weren't really to "places", but to family's homes, and generally around holidays, esp Christmas. So that makes sense to me that it would resonate so much.

Mike86

I'm not really over-analyzing. I'm just giving the opinion that it seems like a lot of people generally like this movie. It just seems to me like there always has to be a few (mostly online) who go against the grain and say how something sucks just because its popular and they want to be different without really giving a good reason as to why it sucks.

I'm not saying everyone has to love it but I just don't really understand how if you were a fan of the series at all how this one is any worse than any of the other entries in the series. Its a fun time and a step up from the first sequel. Just my opinion I guess.

Mabuse

I think part of the reason people hate Christmas Vacation is that it has "unearned" popularity. It isn't very good, but because it revolves around christmas it has become a "tradition" to watch it. This traditional viewing has become a ritual and people convince themselves that it's a great film.

The problems with CV are:

1. They don't go anywhere. They stay home. It doesn't have the road movie component of the rest of the series.
2. Randy Quaid, while very funny, upstages everyone. Around the mid-point it becomes "the Eddie Show" and never recovers
3. Chevy Chase by this time just wasn't funny. Chevy in his early/mid eighties brilliant mode was great in the first two films, but by this time he was burnt out.
4. It's too long. While it does have some very-very funny moments like "Merry Christmas...Happy Hanakua" and "Shitters' full" and everything involving the christmas lights, it has some long gaps where the humor is stale. Scenes like the chipmunk in the christmas tree and the cat getting electricuted suffer from "late period John Hughes syndrome", just like all of Home Alone, too much falling down and Warner Bros style cartoon antics. Cutting 20 minutes out of the film would really improve it.

However I did just notice that he music is by Angelo Badalmenti. I'll have to listen more closely next time.

TGM

That's what makes it great. It was a nice spin. They travelled in European vacation and it was mediocre at best. Plus no shoe-horned in "actiony" scenes with contrived "bad guys" ala European vacation. The "actiony" scene of the SWAT team breaking in actually, sorta, made sense.

I don't feel that Randy Quaid upstaged anyone in this. If anything, he upstaged everyone in the original Vacation movie.

Could not disagree more. Chevy Chase upstaged EVERYONE in this, IMO. From the touching scenes of him in the attic, to the crazy "brainless, dickless" rant, to the subtle throw away lines that he tosses around effortlessly here ie: "we needed a coffin, I mean, a tree..." brilliant stuff.

nah, not really.

mndtrp

It's not the first movie, and I'm perfectly okay with that.