The best and worst family vacation movies

It’s the quintessential family vacation movie, even to this day. The “National Lampoon”-branded movie introduced us to the Griswolds. John Hughes wrote the movie, Harold Ramis directed, and Chevy Chase starred as Griswold patriarch Clark at the peak of his comedy powers. “Vacation” has gone down in the books as one of the most-beloved ‘80s comedies, much less one of the most-beloved family vacation movies.

Then, two years later, a disastrous cash-in for the “Vacation” franchise. In the first movie, the Griswolds are road tripping to Walley World. In this one, they win a trip to multiple European destinations. Why, that seems like a convenient plot device to get into all sorts of fun culture-clash shenanigans. Instead, “European Vacation” is a total misfire, and remarkably unfunny. In the next “Vacation,” they pivoted by focusing not on a trip, but on Christmas vacation, keeping the Griswolds at home but finding more humor.

This is a family vacation movie that focuses largely on somebody not in the family, but that’s kind of the point. The titular Bob is played by Bill Murray. He’s a guy with nebulous, cinematic mental disorders that decides to invite himself along on his doctor’s family vacation. The tightrope this dark comedy walks is that both Bob and his doctor, played by Richard Dreyfuss, having to come across as put upon sometimes and the problem at other times. Largely, “What About Bob?” handles that balance.

If only Barry Sonnenfeld and Robin Williams had collaborated on a road trip comedy when both were at the peak of their powers. A family rents an RV for a road trip and, of course, little goes right. We’re not talking about for the characters, but for the audience. It’s a comedy starring Robin Williams, and yet it feels so lifeless.

We won’t count “Home Alone” because, while much of the McCallister family is on vacation, Kevin very much is not. He’s at home (alone), and Kevin at home takes up the bulk of the movie. While Kevin is separated from his family in the sequel as well, he goes to New York when the rest of the family goes to Miami. As such, everybody is on vacation. Even, seemingly, Harry and Marv. “Home Alone 2” is solid enough, but we can also shout out “Home Alone” in the process.

Carl Reiner was a comedic genius, but he was not discerning when it came to the movies he directed. “Summer Rental” feels tossed off, and star John Candy even once essentially called it a slot-filler on the calendar for Paramount. Candy plays a stressed-out guy who takes an extended vacation to a resort town in Florida with his family. It really does feel like everybody figured “Get a movie star and hope that brings people to the movie” was enough of a creative plan.

Not every family vacation movie is a comedy. Some are taut thrillers that literally have the tagline, “The vacation is over.” A couple dealing with marital strife and their son go on a white-water-rafting excursion, which isn’t exactly a leisurely activity as is. However, things take a scary turn when they run into some fugitives on the lam who take the family hostage.

That’s right, the Johnsons are going on vacation! Who are the Johnsons? Good question! This is about as generic as a title gets, and the Johnsons were no established pop culture characters. In essence, “Johnson Family Vacation” is banking on you finding it entertaining to watch Cedric the Entertainer be flustered for 90 minutes. Few felt that way.

“Us” has sort of fallen to the periphery a bit. Jordan Peele’s first film “Get Out” was a massive sensation and an Oscar player. “Nope” is the one that gets the love as being overlooked and underrated. That leaves “Us” to just sort of, you know, be. However, let us not forget it made its budget 10 times over in theaters and was reasonably well-received. Also, family vacations play a role, so it gets to be on this list!

“Rugrats in Paris” is also not very good, but “Rugrats Go Wild” is worse and it happens to be a crossover movie between the “Rugrats” crew and the “Wild Thornberrys” crew. That’s double the ‘90s Nickelodeon in one lousy movie! Everybody ends up on an uncharted desert isle and Bruce Willis voices Spike the Pickles’ dog.

This could have felt like a partial placeholder akin to “Home Alone 2,” but we were pleasantly surprised to see that “Hotel Transylvania 3” is the highest-rated film in the franchise on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. Maybe it’s because seeing all the monsters in summer mode gave the film more comedy heft. Maybe it’s because this one was almost entirely at the creative design of Genndy Tartakovsky, as opposed to being a clunky combination of his style and the comedy offerings of Adam Sandler and Robert Smigel. Whatever the reason, it worked.

No, we aren’t talking about “Addams Family Values.” This is the sequel to the animated “The Addams Family.” You know, the movies that somehow feel like a ripoff of “Hotel Transylvania” even though the Addamses predate the “Hotel Transylvania” crew for decades. The first movie was okay, but this road-trip sequel was a total misfire.

Sometimes a family trip only takes two people. For example, a father going to a resort with his 11-year-old daughter after he splits from her mother. Then, you know, a bunch of moody, indie-drama stuff happens. We’re being flippant, but “Aftersun” was critically adored so it can handle it. Paul Mescal even got a nomination for Best Actor from the Oscars, and this was for many the first time they saw him in action.

We wish this movie was better. The title is delightful in its wordiness and try-hard nature. Heather Graham plays a wacky aunt! That could have been the second act of her movie career! Critics who wanted to be nice to it said things akin to, “Maybe young children would like it, and maybe it’s not for me as an adult with how loud and frenetic and incoherent it is.” Why couch it? The movie was just poorly made.

Just because a vacation is lengthy doesn’t mean it isn’t a vacation. Sometimes, for example, in period-piece coming-of-age movies, family vacations can last for weeks on end. That’s what happens when your dad is a rich doctor and you’re Baby Houseman and you go to the Catskills for the summer. You might also fall in love with a dance instructor. Why, you might even have the time of your life.

Not to directly quote Wikipedia, but this is a sentence that says it all: “The film received generally negative reviews from critics, despite being deemed an improvement over its predecessors.” This is the final of four “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movies, and this one involves a road trip down to Miami. Of course, we could have also included “Chipwrecked,” which is a movie about a cruise. However you slice it, if the brothers (and Dave, their adoptive father) are on a trip, it’s a family vacation…and it’s not funny.

Alright, we took a shot at a John Candy comedy earlier, but we will end by saying this John Candy comedy is pretty good. Not great, but a solid comedic outing. This time, Candy got to go toe-to-toe with Dan Aykroyd, which helped. It also helped that John Hughes wrote the script, and that nobody was trying to rush “The Great Outdoors” into theaters like “Summer Rental.” Hey, not every movie can be “Vacation.” Just look at “European Vacation.”