Film Credits

Screenplay by: Elisa Bell

Directed by: Stephen Kessler

Starring: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Wayne Newton, Ethan Embry, Wallace Shawn, Miriam Flynn, Marison Nichols, Shae D'Lyn, Siegfried & Roy, Sid Caesar, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Christie Brinkley

Review

Vegas Vacation is the fourth in a series of films featuring the antics of the Griswold clan. In this latest outing, the family's vacation plans take Clark (Chevy Chase), wife wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), son Rusty (Ethan Embry) and daughter Audrey (Marisol Nichols) straight to the gambling capital of the country - Las Vegas. The film is comprised mainly of short vignettes involving the experiences of the individual family members during their vacation, and the various folks they meet. One segment deals with Ellen's annoying and disgusting country cousins Eddie (Randy Quaid), Catherine (Miriam Flynn), and stripper/daughter Vickie (Shae D'Lyn). Other segments involves Wayne Newton continually trying to woo Ellen, wise-ass blackjack dealer Marty (Wallace Shawn) continually taking all of Clark's money, an overlong tribute to entertainers Siegfried & Roy, and Christie Brinkley reprising her "Woman in Ferrari" role from National Lampoon's Vacation. Sid Caesar also turns in a quick cameo at the end of the film as the "Old Guy," a man who gives all his Vegas winnings to the Griswolds.

All in all, Vegas Vacation is a tedious, pointless, lame, and unfunny excuse for a film. Aside from the weary and childish jokes, the biggest problem is that there is no plot aside from "wow...we're in Vegas," and the focus of the film changes every minute or so to a new unrelated "gag" sequence. The constant flipping is irritating in the extreme and destroys any chance the film has to build upon what happens previously. While this sort of non-plot set up can work in a comedy situation, it is very difficult to accomplish and relies heavily on really, really good gags and setups (for a perfect example of doing this type of film correctly, take a look at Jerry Lewis' hilarious The Bellboy). More than anything else, the film comes across as one long dull commercial produced by the Las Vegas travel bureau - it's filled with nothing but shots of the local hotels, attractions and shows (such as the very long, aforementioned Siegfried & Roy show). In fact, watching this film is almost as bad as taking a real trip to Las Vegas - you don't care about any of the phony people around you, and you just pray you can escape from its evil clutches before it's too late with your wits and money intact. Unless a decent script can be obtained for any future adventures, the Griswold family should just spend their vacations at home from now on.

Warner Home Video laserdisc release of Vegas Vacation is scheduled for July 8, 1997. Originally filmed in the non-anamorphic, matted Spherical Panavision process and projected theatrically with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the full 1.85:1 imagery is retained for the laserdisc edition. Vegas Vacation was apparently filmed a bit soft, and the laserdisc transfer duplicates that look faithfully. In fact, for the opening credits sequence, the credits themselves are much sharper than the actual filmed images that appear behind them. The color transfer is okay, but nothing really to get excited over.

While Vegas Vacation's digital Dolby Surround Stereo soundtrack is pretty good, again there is nothing really spectacular to get yourself excited about. The disc has also been encoded with a Dolby Digital AC-3 soundtrack, but at this point in time we do not have the equipment to test it correctly. Because of the inclusion of the Dolby Digital track, the disc has not been CX-encoded. (Also, a monaural version of the film's soundtrack also appears on Analog Track 1 (left)).

Vegas Vacation was pressed at Pioneer, is Table of Contents encoded, and features 32 chapter markers (listed on the jacket). The disc has also been thoroughly closed-captioned.