X
- 1985
- PG-13
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 35 m
- 1985
- PG-13
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 35 m
Summary The Griswolds win a vacation tour across Europe where the usual havoc ensues.
Directed By: Amy Heckerling
Written By: John Hughes, Robert Klane
- 1985
- PG-13
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 35 m
- 1985
- PG-13
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 35 m
National Lampoon's European Vacation
47
6.6
Where to Watch
Summary The Griswolds win a vacation tour across Europe where the usual havoc ensues.
Directed By: Amy Heckerling
Written By: John Hughes, Robert Klane
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 10 Critic Reviews
47
10% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
90% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 10 Critic Reviews
47
10% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
90% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Too many scenes in European Vacation peter out about a gag or two short for the film to be as funny as it ought to be. But the basic amiability of the humor is as pleasant as it is surprising.
The London scenes are enjoyable – the ‘look kids... Big Ben... Parliament’ roundabout routine should be a staple of every family trip to the capital – but overall, it’s not quite funny or memorable enough.
While it's very much a retread, it succeeds in following up the first film's humor with more in a similar vein.
Chase and D'Angelo are clever and naturally funny, and they're well-matched. And yet the movie is dumb, so dumb it must have taken some work to make it that way. Perhaps next the Griswalds should make a forced march through a Hollywood executive's brain. [27 July 1985, p.B3]
Story [by John Hughes] of a frenetic, chaotic tour of the Old World, with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo reprising their roles as determined vacationers, is graceless and only intermittently lit up by lunacy and satire.
There was bite and outrageousness and a touch of the surreal to the excesses of National Lampoon's Vacation (in which Chevy Chase and Harold Ramis humanized Hughes' cartoonlike material). This was writing whose springboard might have been awful firsthand experience. European Vacation feels as though it were dreamed up to cover the rent on the beach house for the summer.
Heckerling directs this mess with no sense of pace and less sense of where to put the camera. There are pixilated, MTV-style sequences that simply slow up the story, car chases and car crashes, and, of course, aerobicizers boinging out of their leotards. The best thing in the movie is the catchy theme from the last Vacation, which, unfortunately, hasn't the slightest thing to do with Europe.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 23 User Ratings
6.6
52% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
48% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 23 User Ratings
6.6
52% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
48% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.
Production Company
National Lampoon,
Warner Bros.
Release Date Jul 26, 1985
Duration 1 h 35 m
Rating PG-13
Tagline For over two thousand years, Europe has survived many great disasters. Now for the real test... The Griswold's.
Awards
BMI Film & TV Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Young Artist Awards
• 1 Nomination
