This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
A Quest For Fun
Plot Overview
Chicago suburbanite Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) has his routine
down pat helping his wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) with the dishes.
He makes time on the weekends for his children Rusty (Anthony
Michael Hall) and Audrey (Dana Barron.) Come family vacation and
they set their sights on theme park Walley World in L.A..
To maximize time spent with the
kids, Clark decides they will drive instead of fly. He is
bamboozled by a sleazy salesman (Eugene Levy) into trading in the
reliable family car for a lemon. On the road they are stopped by a
motorcycle cop (James Keach) sympathetic to the death of a
family pet. In fact they encounter ("We're from out of town") a
veritable gamut of people both good and bad—the Indians are
the good Samaritans here—as they confront banal vacation issues
gone awry. All the while Clark deports himself like a
character in an Oskar Graf biographical novel:
It was easy to get along with him because he bore no grudges, was always quickly reconciled, and bubbled over with jolly good-humor. “A woman has to be beautiful and gay,” he used to say. “It doesn't matter how good looking a man is. He has to be jolly too, but he needs some brains in addition. Only when a person is on his way to the grave does he begin to be cross and sulky.” (67)
That last is elderly Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) who was foisted on them by their country cousins whom they visited along the way.
Ideology
The carefree couple takes every
opportunity to rekindle the flame they once had in their glory
days. The wife still has her good looks and a chesty form. Clark
gets it right per, (Prov. 5:18-19) “Let thy fountain
be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as
the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at
all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.”
(Prov.
5:20-21) “And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with
a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways
of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his
goings.” He encounters a recurring distraction of a hot
babe (Christie Brinkley) in a showy red, current model 1983 Ferrari
that seems to shadow them along the road while she pantomimes
(license: LUV ME) her availability. He might just end up in hot
water with his wife (“Do you think Mom will buy it?”)
Production Values
“” (1983) was directed by Harold Ramis. It was written by John Hughes. It stars Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo and Imogene Coca. They played their straightforward roles comedically straight. Some of them had done it before.
It was certified R having some bad words and brief partial nudity. This is the debut of a veritable stable of vacation flicks. You get what you expect, though truth be told, they've started with a winner. Run time is 1 hour 38 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
I thought it was pretty funny and may have once been shocking. This one can weather repeated viewings if you want to involve an audience that hasn't yet had the experience. It will round out your movie library regardless.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Several suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture was cited from the King James Version, Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Graf, Oskar Maria. The Life Of My Mother. Copyright, 1940, by Oskar Maria Graf. New York: Howell, Soskin & Co., 1940. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org