Forced Family Togetherness Always Works

Alex' roomie wanted to watch Vacation, the Ed Helms/Christina Applegate movie that's basically the descendant of those Chevy Chase National Lampoon (fill in type) Vacation films. Which I never really watched, because Chevy Chase isn't really funny to me*. And I had not heard good things about the new movie, so really low expectations.

As it turns out, I did actually laugh at some of it. Not as much as Alex did, but at least a few times. The gross out humor - the swim in "Griswold's Spring", for example - no thanks. The parts where people are injuring themselves, that I usually laughed at. The part where they're rafting on the Colorado River. There were a couple of other things. I was worried the possibly psychopathic little brother character was going to continue being a bullying little shit the entire film, so the fact he eventually gets stopped was much appreciated. And they did it in a way that just humiliate him by making him uncomfortable, so I didn't have to feel bad about cheering an elementary school kid getting his ass beat. Bonus.

The story is about what you expect. The dad deciding they need a family vacation and forcing everyone into it. Everyone is miserable, until they recognized Dad was just trying to be a Good Father (because he feels he's not doing a good job of it), and this changes everyone's mind about the whole thing. I don't know that it actually works that way. At best maybe everyone would agree to pretend they were OK just to not hurt his feelings. Not really how I remember my family vacations, but it must happen to some people, given how many films use that arc.

* And I guess I've heard enough stories about him generally being an ass to everyone to the point a couple of years ago I had a dream where I beat him up in a grocery store parking lot. I don't remember what he did, but I know in the dream I had no qualms about it.