Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) has taken his family to the same cabin in Cheboygan, Michigan for the last 10 years. He overhears his wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) complaining about it. He decides to relive his childhood vacation to Walley World. The older son James gets bullied by younger son Kevin. The family gets hounded by a trucker. They visit Rusty's sister Audrey (Leslie Mann) and her well-hung right-wing weatherman husband Stone Crandall (Chris Hemsworth). James falls for beautiful fellow vacationer Adena. They get to the grandparents Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) and Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) in San Francisco.

This sequel takes a giant dump on the original and it's happy to do it. It's not what I'm looking for and it's not funny. It's trying so hard. It starts with the opening picture montage. It's not funny to me especially since some of them look photoshoped. It's too big and obvious. As for the new family, Helms and Applegate have their moments. The foul-mouthed little one is annoying. At least, the older one has a love interest but it could have done better. Mann and Hemsworth are a disappointment. It is great to have Chevy again. It's too bad that this decides to take the poop road from start to finish.

The original National Lampoon's Vacation from 1983 had Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) having a shambolic journey to Wally World. It was a madcap and funny film.

This modern re-boot sees Clark's now grown up son Rusty (Ed Helms) a pilot with a budget airline recreating the same journey with his family as he did when he was a kid.

Along the way the family has mishaps, being chased across the country by a demented trucker, swimming in a hot spring which is full of raw sewage, going white water rafting with a suicidal guy, having their car ransacked.

The humour is more course, cruder and infantile than the original film. Helms might look goofy but he does not have the comedic skills of Chevy Chase and even his screen wife Christina Applegate out acts him here. Worse still were Rusty's kids who were weird and just off putting.

Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo make cameo appearances as Rusty's parents but this film is only mildly amusing and a disappointment.

Rusty certainly is Clark's son, going from Anthony Michael Hall in the first film to Ed Helms here, a pilot for a third rate airline, now married to the outwardly motherly Christina Applegate whose secretly still a party girl inside. They have two sons ( Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins) who obviously despise each other (the YOUNGER brother is the bully in the most hysterically funny offensive way),and it's not just Helm who embarrasses the kids, Applegate does too. This is especially obvious when they stop by her alma mater where she tries to prove she's one of the cool kids after she learns that her reputation had lived on.

Helm decides to liven things up by repeating his childhood vacation to none other than Wally World and there are several repeat situations done with a more modern perspective. One thing where it is certainly not modern is in its comic style which is closer to "Family Guy" with its no stone unturned in delicious gross out gags that had me yowling in delight and going "eew!" over and over as I howled. This is one of those comedies where the gags need to be discovered fresh with no spoilers as they are beyond description.

Rusty's sister Audrey (played by Leslie Mann) also appears, brought up obviously liberal but married to the very Republican Chris Hemsworth, a good ole' boy who finds pleasure by feeding his prize steer beef ribs. Hemsworth leaves nothing to the imagination, proving that lots of things in Texas are big...well maybe not some brains. Older brother Gisindo keeps on encountering a nice girl also traveling that younger brother Stebbins keeps harassing every chance he gets.

This was a perfect way to end 2020, so hysterically funny that I couldn't even pick out one scene as my favorite. Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo appear in cameos as their characters from the four other movies, and it reminded me of how much I've missed the still sultry D'Angelo. If you ever need a break from the real world or the opportunity to laugh at it all in good fun, then take a trip to the updated version of the next Griswold generation. It's a trip that goes in the hall of shame along with those delicious photos in the opening with that terrifically now nostalgic vacation theme song.