Vacation

Grade: C

Director:  John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein

Starring: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Leslie Mann, Chris Hemsworth and Charlie Day

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 39 min.

“I've never even heard of the original vacation,” says young Kevin Griswold on the eve of another misbegotten cross-country family foray in the sequel “Vacation.”

“Doesn't matter,” deadpans Rusty (Ed Helms), scion to Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold. “The new vacation will stand on its own.”

Not exactly. Vacation is far removed from the original National Lampoon’s Vacation, the 1983 Harold Ramis farce that introduced the world to the Griswolds and their ill-fated misadventure to Walley World, the fictitious amusement park. The film echoed the frustrations of the Reagan-era middle-class and their proud but elusive attempts to realize the American dream.

The new Vacation is a retread as noxious as the Arkansas sewage pond that Rusty, wife Debbie (Christina Applegate), and sons James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins) unwittingly wade into en route from Chicago for a return visit to Walley World.

Rusty, now grown into a veritable Clark clone, is a hapless airline pilot for an econo carrier with a stale love life and no respect from his sons. James is a literary-loving introvert, while the foul-mouthed Kevin concocts devious ways to torture his older brother.

So Rusty piles the family into a rented minivan bound for California—if you’re wondering why a commercial pilot couldn’t simply obtain discount tickets so his family could fly to Walley World, well, he can. But then we’d be deprived of such detours as Memphis, Tenn. (accurate U.S. geography not included) to revisit Debbie’s drunken sorority days back when she was known as “Debbie Do-Anything.” A whitewater ride in the Rockies goes awry thanks to a manic depressive guide (Charlie Day). And when Rusty stops to visit sister Audrey (Leslie Mann) and her blow-dried husband (Chris Hemsworth) in Texas, we’re treated to cannibal cows and Hemsworth’s 6-pack and sheathed tube steak.

Along the way, writer-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein revisit the hot blond in a convertible scene from the original Vacation just to wreck it. It’s an apt metaphor for this risible reprise, which is low on satire and high on gross-out gags, beginning literally seconds into the crude opening credits montage. And let me be clear: profane children are never funny.

Indeed, whenever you hear Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road,” or Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo pop up for a shot of nostalgia, it comes with a weariness that causes you to momentarily question your affinity for the original National Lampoon’s Vacation.

It’s a bad sign when the funniest character in a comedy is the car—even The Love Bug had Buddy Hackett. The Griswolds’ fictional “Tartan Prancer,” known as “the Honda of Albania,” is a comically inconvenient MPV that has outside cup holders, a CB radio, retractable powers cords designed for corkscrew-shaped outlets, and two fuel tanks with half the gas mileage. The incoherent key fob with a dozen buttons emblazoned with unhelpful symbols like a rabbit, rocket ship, muffin and swastika.

More of this updated, whip smart humor would have helped this Vacation actually stand on its own. Instead, this road trip hits a dead end.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

The latest in enhanced marketing techniques

Grade: B–

Director: Adam McKay

Starring: Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, Christina Applegate, Kristen Wiig, James Marsden and Meagan Good

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 59 min.

When last we saw Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), that polyester paragon of old school TV news, he was resisting the changing feminine face of his medium in the 1970s. In Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, he’s among the vanguard of the all-day news network and the ultimate dumbing-down of that same medium. That premise makes for a good half-hour or so of script material; the rest of Anchorman 2 is the sort of extraneous padding that comedic performers like Ferrell and Adam Sandler ultimately have the unfortunate clout to foist into their movies.

Ousted from his NYC anchor’s chair alongside his wife Veronica (Christina Applegate), Ron lands a job working the graveyard shift at GNN, the nation’s first 24-hour news channel. Locked in a ratings battle with fellow anchor Jack Lime (James Marden), the network’s prime time prima donna, Ron stumbles onto the notion of telling people “the news they want to hear” instead of “the news they need to hear.” So, Ron’s teleprompter gets filled with pap about kittens, car chases and, above all, “America,” all accented by a dizzying array of onscreen graphics. Dimwitted weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) moves outdoors, where every strong breeze is conflated into a deadly maelstrom. Loutish sportscaster Champ Kind (David Koechner) shows nothing but a highlight reel full of home runs and hard tackles (“and NO soccer,” Ron demands), all punctuated by his catchphrase “Whammy!” And beat reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) logs stories about strip clubs and, well, “America.”

This sardonic framework culminates during the film’s final act with a madcap battle royale between various spinoff news channels, a parade of horribles embodying the media oversaturation that Ron’s bright idea would ultimately bring about. The scene’s cavalcade of cameos might smack of a narrative crutch. But, it breaks the monotony and, in the case of an appearance by a certain Canadian comedian, shows what a true physical funnyman can do with even the barest material.

Unfortunately, it’s also a scene that encapsulates everything good and banal about Anchorman 2. While the specter of a fight to the death between warring tribes from the BBC, MTV, E! and History Channel is hilarious, the incongruous inclusion of a werewolf, minotaur and the ghost of Stonewall Jackson is the sort of pointless surreality that populates rest of the film.

Too much time is spent on what Brick, Champ and Brian were doing with their lives before Ron gets the band back together. Same with an utterly unfunny subplot involving Brick’s non sequitur-filled flirtations with fellow oddball Chani (Kristen Wiig)—a little Brick goes a LONG way. When Ron is abruptly afflicted with blindness (too complicated to explain here), Ferrell’s otherwise droll portrayal of Ron’s self-pity party strays into stagnant waters, particularly when Ron and his son nurse-feed an injured shark they name Doby back to health. Even the structure of two verbal gags was lifted from the Austin Powers movies.

And then there are the lunkheaded attempts at off-color humor, which Ferrell and director Adam McKay include without an ounce of wit. Hearing Ron, Champ and others constantly refer to “blacks,” “Mexicans,” “lesbians,” and “Jews” isn’t brazenly non-PC, it’s just uncomfortably icky without sufficient satirical context. The ebb is Ron’s affair with Linda (Meagan Good), his feisty African-American producer, mined for race-centric riffs that include a Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner scene in which Ron adopts an exaggerated black-cent in order to communicate with Linda’s otherwise erudite family.

Anchorman 2 is 15 minutes longer than its predecessor, but it feels like 50. Trimming a half-hour of self-indulgence would have left a solid, even subversive satire. As it is, this is one anchorman that desperately needs a copy editor.

Hall Pass

Gettin' Jiggly wit It

Grade: B –

Director: Bobby and Peter Farrelly

Starring: Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate, and Nicky Whelan

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 38 mins.

Hall Pass is about how the value of frivolity and youthful indiscretion dissipates with the adulthood. Interestingly, the same thing could be said about the value of Farrelly Brothers’ comedy. Even being generous, the scatology siblings haven’t made a good movie since Me, Myself & Irene in the year 2000 B.A (Before Apatow).

With age comes a change in viewpoint, and the funniest parts of Hall Pass aren’t the redundant, rehashed toilet humor and full frontal nudity. They’re the snapshots of arrested masculinity and matrimony, suburban schmos wedded to their fully loaded minivans and sleep apnea masks who are also expected to take their wives shoe shopping and to Kathy Griffin concerts.

Yet, full emasculation still doesn’t afford Rick (Owen Wilson), a plaid-wearing real estate agent, and Fred (Jason Sudeikis, Saturday Night Live), a boorish life insurance salesman, the right to glance at another woman from behind. So, their better but semi-bitter halves, Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate), latch onto some pop psychology and granted their hubbies a week-long “hall pass”: a time-out from marriage and purported license to sow their wild oats. Or, maybe “shredded wheat” is a more age-appropriate term.

Either way, the premise is contrived and lazy. The joke, however, is that Rick and Fred are even more inept as bachelors than when shackled by marriage. Once-cool ‘80s lingo falls thunderously flat; they trawl Applebee’s for chicks but just end up tiring themselves out by 9pm. And, when either actually manages to snare some strange – including Rick’s rapport with a busty blond Aussie barista (Nicky Whelan) – they react like the proverbial dog who doesn’t know what to do with the car once he catches it.

Ironically, the humor in Hall Pass falters when it doesn’t act its age (personified by Richard Jenkins playing a gold chain-wearing, middle-aged lothario). When making a film supposedly about the inextricable path to and embrace of maturation, it is best to leave the poop and masturbation jokes to the Dennis Dugans of the world.

Neil Morris