It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

The first must-see film of the year.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The plot to "National Lampoon's European Vacation" is pretty easy to follow. The Griswold family travels to Europe, and hi-jinks ensue. That's pretty much all you need to know. There's a few jokes worth mentioning, like the "Big Ben, Parliament." scene and a series of misunderstandings, leading to Ellen Griswold being mistaken for a porno actress. The rest doesn't have the same quirkiness found in the original, or the fun feel of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". Instead the film is padded out with shenanigans after shenanigans and most of them are hit or miss. It's a fun sequel, but don't expect the great comedy of the first film or the film after.

Despite the dumbing-down of nearly every aspect of the original movie, "European Vacation" looks and feels today like the stuff of mid-'80s cable. You know the kind; that movie you bump into on HBO on a Sunday afternoon, and stick with. That's not a feeling you get everyday, especially with a 30 year-old movie you've just recently seen for the first time.As a sequel, it's not a patch on the original; the kids are inconsistent, the family's unbelievably hapless and the jokes don't work. But it's a product of the Reagan '80s and there's some charm in that respect. It's good for a few chuckles, but for my money, an angry Dana Hill steals the show.5/10

When the Griswolds accidentally win a trip to Europe on a TV show, they happily decide to go. But the family's name would not be Griswold if everything went without complication. In London, they see Big Ben and Parliament extensively, but only after Clark learns to drive on the left side by not doing so.In Paris, Rusty's hormones disastrously spring to life. In Germany, the Griswolds visit the wrong relatives and in Italy, the family gets in touch with crime and a videotape that was in the camera that was stolen back in Paris. In addition, Audrey, who is in love, keeps ringing up the phone bill, Rusty keeps hitting on girls, and Ellen keeps keeping them all together when times are bad.....It's easily the weakest of the four movies, yet EV has a certain charm to it, whether it be cameos from famous people in a particular country, or Clark spouting out inane one liners, you cannot help but smile at it.But that's the problem, you only ever smile, never laugh or chuckle, which is a shame, because the book ending films were hilarious.It gets very boring at times too, and the jokes get recycled time and time again, especially the running joke of the family not understanding the language, and the locals being derogatory toward them. Funny the first time, tiresome come the fifth.Throw in some kind of heist, and you have your film, albeit a very average one

Stick with the Christmas one and you'll be all right. This one was atrocious. Unimaginative, boring, repetitive, predictable. Chase is in good form as always, but there's little he can do with such a dumb script. Same for the wife. The son is just passable and the girl who plays the daughter... oh my dear lord.. I have never seen such an off- putting creature in my life. She looks like a pig, especially when seen from the side.The only thing I liked was the film's comparison of Americans with swine. (In the beginning of the film, the Griswold's are encouraged by a TV audience to "be a pig.") I suppose that's why they casted that disgusting thing as the daughter, who is supposed to be playing a teenager but looks like she's nearly forty. They also did a good job of showing the utter ignorance and degeneration of American parents, even back in '85: in a beginning scene, the piglet daughter's boyfriend is over and they're down each other's throats in front of the parents. What kind of a emasculated little moron of a "father" allows his teenage piglet this behaviour?An American one, I guess.