NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION - Blu-ray review

You're probably asking right now, How is it that we don't have "Citizen Kane" in high definition, yet we already have three editions of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" on HD DVD and Blu-ray? Your guess is as good as mine. This time the Blu-ray disc comes in a big Christmas gift canister filled with related goodies.

The four "Vacation" comedies with Chevy Chase saw their ups and downs. "Christmas Vacation," from 1989, the third in the sequence of films, was no exception. It marked an upturn in the series, to be sure, but within the movie things lurch frantically between high points and low.

"Christmas Vacation" follows the same basic pattern as the original "Vacation" movie, only this time the Griswold family isn't on the road anywhere but settled comfortably down to spend a traditional, old-fashioned Christmas at home. Well, at least Clark (Chase), the father, wants to have an old-fashioned Christmas, and his wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) is her usual reluctant, passive self. The kids (newcomers to the series Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki), as always could care less. From here we get everything going wrong that could go wrong, including Clark's typically obsessive behavior and his inevitable breakdown. If it sounds familiar, John Hughes again wrote the script, Hughes being the fellow who, besides writing the first two "Vacation" films, did "Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Home Alone," "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," and the like.

The movie is a roller-coaster ride of hilarity, poignancy, vulgarity, dumbness, and tedium. One thing to be said about it, though, is that things are never dull, for good or for bad. If the film had maintained a more consistent level of humor throughout, it might have become a perennial Christmas favorite in everybody's household, something like "A Christmas Story." As it stands, even with its mild PG-13 rating, it contains enough coarse material to warrant it advisable viewing only by adults or late teens, which is an irony, really, considering that the filmmakers seemed to have aimed most of the content that makes it objectionable primarily at young teens and adolescents. It's a film full of contradictions, making it hard to review, let alone to recommend.

The story concerns a nice, cozy vacation at the Griswold house. Naturally, they're all lunatics. Sorry, dysfunctional, to be politically correct. OK, you're right, lunatics. Clark insists on inviting his parents and in-laws (John Randolph, Diane Ladd, E.G. Marshall, and Doris Roberts) to Christmas dinner, and then their demented Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) shows up unannounced with his brood, and a maniacal squirrel invades the premises, and we get a kidnapping, and then a S.W.A.T team raid, and, as you can see, things get out of hand pretty quickly by the last half of the picture. A shame, really. It starts out so well.

The first half, especially, offers some sidesplitting moments: Clark getting his car stuck under a huge, moving truck. The unfolding of a monster Christmas tree. Clark's flirtations with a pretty department-store clerk. Clark's climbing the roof to put up Christmas lights. The lighting of the house with 25,000 imported Italian twinkle bulbs. The cutting of the Christmas turkey. A wild-eyed squirrel. Some very funny slapstick sight gags.

In contrast, there are the abuses: The two sets of unfunny parents, supposedly counterpoints for Clark's zaniness but generally just pains in the butt. Clark's hectic, raucous, but ultimately boring sled ride. Cousin Eddie's continual barrage of grossness, culminating in the emptying of his RV's septic tank into the Griswold's gutter. A dog named Snots, for obvious reasons. A pair of snooty, yuppie neighbors. Clark's ultimate collapse, complete with a seemingly endless string of profanities. And the waste of two great performers, the usually reliable William Hickey and the adorable Mae Questel as Uncle Lewis and Aunt Bethany. Questel's role is particularly galling because she was the original voice for both Betty Boop and Olive Oyl, and here she gets virtually nothing to do to show off her famous vocal or comedic talents.

So, we've got a film that could have been funnier and more family-friendly had it been trimmed of its cruder elements. Yet, true to form, it's a film that also has a surprising number of touching scenes amidst the chaos, like Clark's reminiscing in the attic over childhood home movies, or Clark's talk with Eddie's little girl about Santa Claus.

You'll either ignore the uncouth and clumsy parts, relish the funny bits, and think it's the best of the "Vacation" series, or like me you'll be too annoyed by the parts that don't work to appreciate the best things the movie has to offer. Well, at least the movie's got some funny parts. That's more than one can say about the "European" and "Vegas Vacation" entries, and maybe anything the film has to offer, no matter how small, is better than nothing at all. For some folks, I understand "Christmas Vacation" is a holiday institution in itself. For others, like me, one or two times is enough.

Video:
Warner Bros. produce a decent transfer using a single-layer BD25 and VC-1 encoding. It provides reasonably vibrant hues, sharp definition, only slightly too dark skin tones, and deep color depth and black levels. The widescreen image continues to fill up a 16x9 television screen with an original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and there is the same slight grittiness to the image that I noticed in both the DVD and HD DVD editions, with just as much grain as I expected, especially during the opening titles. Nevertheless, the high-definition picture is easy on the eyes, and short of a complete restoration it's probably as good as it can be.

Audio:
The sound is disappointing, as it comes via ordinary, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, which means you don't get much information from the rear speakers, but you do get a modest left-to-right front-channel spread. Although the Dolby Digital is clear and well balanced, it also displays a small but noticeable degree of high-end brightness, with no compensating deep bass involved. I suppose the main thing is that the front channels open up nicely, providing good stereo reproduction, which is probably all anybody expects from the film.

Extras:
Warners proclaim this new Blu-ray version of the movie the "20th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition," which is quite a mouthful. Considering there isn't much on the disc itself besides the movie, I guess they're referring to the contents of the gift tin the movie comes in. The disc contains all of one major bonus item: an audio commentary with Randy Quaid, Beverly D'Angelo, Johnny Galecki, Miriam Flynn, director Jeremiah Chechik, and producer Matty Simmons. Not even the star, Chevy Chase, participates in it, and for the few minutes I listened, it didn't seem worth spending much time on.

Beyond the commentary, there are twenty-nine scene selections; a widescreen theatrical trailer; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; French and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

The disc and assorted physical bonuses come in a decoratively painted gift canister, which includes a packet of "instant snow"; a Santa cap; a set of holiday drink coasters with favorite movie quotes on them (I liked those); a button saying "I Survived a Griswold Family Christmas"; and, as a Blu-ray exclusive, a miniature mug replica (very miniature, as in tiny plastic).

Parting Shots:
"Christmas Vacation" is almost on a par with the first "Vacation" movie, missing the mark only in terms of the several pitfalls I've mentioned, yet miles ahead of the "European" and "Vegas Vacation" flicks. Still, for me personally the excesses of "Christmas Vacation" outweigh its blessings, so I did not enjoy it quite as much this time or last as I did my first time around on cable. The late John Hughes, who could be a genius one minute and a washout the next, prominently reveals within the context of "Christmas Vacation" both sides of his talent. Well, at least the movie looks OK in high definition.