Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure

I knew this would be one of the worst movies I could have imagined...but in just 20 short minutes it actually exceeded my low expections by being possibly THE worst movie I have ever seen.

I have already wasted too much time typing about it...trust me, it sucks.

I was hoping that this would be funny, boy was I wrong! Any Gilligan's Island would have been funnier. Not only was it boring but the quantity of commercials was absurd. I was glad when it was over. Looks like I resume going to the video store soon.

I'm a big fan of the "Vacation" franchise, and I love Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie, and at least a couple of the behind-the-scenes names were involved in this project (most notably Matty Simmons, who produced or executive-produced all 4 of the theatrical releases, as well as "Animal House"). For those reasons I figured this made-for-TV spin off might be worth checking out, even without Chevy Chase.

For the record, I did not expect it to be very good; I just thought it might be a slightly amusing diversion. Therefore, my high level of disappointment goes to prove just how bad this utter turd of a movie really was. It was mind-numbingly, jaw-droppingly, heart-stoppingly, head-explodingly terrible. Yet, somehow, I could not stop watching it. It's a sickness I have; I can't seem to walk out on a film or give up on a TV show before it ends. Nothing has ever made me want two hours of my life back more than this movie.

This movie was a disaster. Why do movie producers insist on tarnishing the name of something that was truly great? They did not HAVE to use the "vacation" name to make a story out of this piece of crap, but that is the ONLY way anyone would have EVER watched I suppose. First off, what is Vacation without Chevy Chase? He WAS the movie. The original vacation was hilarious and I still laugh when I see it. The second was not as good, but still pretty decent. The Christmas one,....hmmmm, not crazy about, but not horrid. This one basically found the long lost Audrey and put her together with her trailer trash cousins, which if you had seen the first movie know would NEVER happen. So it was her, cousin eddie, and his wife and the grandfather, played by Ed Asner. All these characters were morally depraved, and just disgusting all together. The story was rediculous and not the least bit funny, but really sad.

They did the same thing to such greats as "Jaws", "Crocodile Dundee", "Superman" and so many others. They milked these stories for all they were worth. They took the original piece of work and dragged it through the mud!!!! Why? So Sad!

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2 (2003)

1/2 (out of 4)

Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) gets bitten by a monkey so to avoid a lawsuit the company sends him and his family on a vacation to a tropical island. Man, oh man, what a complete and utter disaster this thing here turned out to be. It's somewhat shocking because it seems writer Matty Simmons, a vet of this series, was really trying to delivers the goods to fans. I mean, we've got Cousin Eddie returning to the series. We've got Dana Barron from the first VACATION film coming back as Audrey Griswold. We've also got Eric Idol coming back as his character from the second film in the series. Throughout the movie there are other jokes aiming back at the previous films in the series as well as other National Lampoon movies including a cameo from Stephen Furst of ANIMAL HOUSE fame. They went that far to come up with something for the fans but they should have spent more time on the screenplay because it's just horrid. Not for a single frame does this low-budget film feel like it's a part of the series. There just aren't any funny moments and most of the scenes are just so poorly written and handled that you can't help but feel embarrassed. Even worse is that the entire thing is an obvious attempt to just make money, which is a real shame as I'm sure the series had more to offer. The performances are pretty much what you'd expect but Quaid can't capture the fire from his previous entries in the series and he comes across rather bland. Fred Willard doesn't add much but Sung Hi Lee steals the film with her incredible beauty, which makes this thing worth sitting through. I will admit that it was fun seeing Barron again but her character is poorly written. 50's Scream Queen Beverly Garland appears towards the end in the final film of her career. NATIONAL LAMPOON'S Christmas VACATION 2 is a truly terrible movie on pretty much all levels so people really shouldn't expect anything like the original series.