Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure

I was wondering why I had never heard of this movie and after watching it, I know why. It's not very good. Bringing back the original Audrey was cool, but they had her act like the second Audrey. They brought back Eric Idle to try to make up for the lack of comedy but he wasn't in enough scenes. Using a green screen instead of actually having them be on a boat in the ocean was just sad. If you liked the original movies you will want to see this once, then forget about it.

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.

Why oh why did they have to try and make a sequel to one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. The movie is a train wreck on every level and should have never been made. Randy Quaid's portrayal of cousin Eddie is an over the top caricature of his previous outings as cousin Eddie. Also, the Eddie character is not interesting enough to carry an entire movie. Even "eye candy" Sung Hi Lee could not redeem this hunk of holiday crap. Please do not waste your time on this move, just watch the original again.

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.

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.