Principal Cast: Chevy Chase; Beverly D’Angio; Randy Quaid;

Director: Jeremiah S Chechik

SYNOPSIS

Another `disaster’ movie from the well-known Vacation series, this is the third film following on from the original “Vacation ” in 1983 and “European Vacation” in 1985 and follows the exploits of the dysfunctional Griswold family.

In a series of accidents of ever increasing magnitude, Clark Griswold (Chase) and his family plan for, then invite their extended family plus some unwelcome others to a Christmas dinner that all will long remember (for all the wrong reasons).

From a promising beginning, the series is seriously showing signs of overexposure. There continue to be a few acceptable sight gags, puns and verbal misunderstandings from earlier films, but the comedy has become a bit too predictable for outright belly laughs; in fact a number of yawns tend to be the ORDER of the day. At the same time, the action comes thick and fast - not allowing the viewer to grab his or her breath to have a whinge about such annoyances. In that regard it successfully deflects criticism of the film as a whole.

Often the best comedies are those that are able to extract more than just laughs from people, and the use of pathos as an emotion is one of the most widely used; though it takes great skill to do this successfully. The film occasionally uses pathos - one does feel sorry for Clark a few times - with limited success.

EXTRAS

? an excellent multi-page cast and crew menu

? “Behind the Scenes” - a multi-page written summary for the making of the film, details of locations etc

? theatrical trailers for all four “Vacation” movies (”Vegas Vacation” followed in 1997)

? languages and subtitles menu (both for English and French)

OVERALL

Basically it is nonsense - but harmless nonsense all the same. Forget `life’ for a moment; suspend logic for a time; settle back in the chair with a cuppa or tinnie, and I expect you will find enough from this film to say it is okay entertainment.