The Sunday Mail
ED Helms is one of those talents you feel is only a single hit away from becoming a bonafide star.
Gifted with effortless comic timing, unparalleled delivery and the ability to make his co-stars appear funnier than they actually are, it’s sad to think that this 41-year-old may probably never get the credit he so rightfully deserves.
After all, this is the guy who almost hoodwinked the whole world into believing that Bradley Cooper, and to some extent Zach Galifianakis, had a future in comedy.
For those not in the know, I’m referring to the infamous “Hangover” trilogy.
Forlornly, that hit hasn’t come yet and may never come.
Now as Helms approaches the twilight years of his career, maybe the Daily Show alum can draw comfort from the fact that somewhere out there is a guy or a group of guys who actually believe he is a star.
These are fans who truly appreciate his talent(s) and the contributions he has made to the genre.
That said, Helms latest offering “Vacation” is your typical Ed Helms film.
The guy is a total laugh riot as Rusty Griswold, a disenchanted pilot of a low budget airline, decides to take his suburban family on a cross-country road trip to visit a recently opened theme park — Walley World.
Fighting the demons that come with middle-age and the rut that comes with being married for decades, Griswold (Helms) convinces his family that the trip is the answer to their monotonous lives.
The once famous Christina Applegate stars as his wife Debbie, a once rebellious teen who turned out to be a domestic mom, while newcomers Steele Stebbins and Skyler Gisondo star as his two sons Kevin and James.
His sons’ names combined gives you Kevin James and the two young stars, much like the actor Kevin James himself, have next to no talent.
I wish to state here that this is purely coincidental. Or at least I think it is.
Anyway, at its very core “Vacation” is your typical run the mill disaster movie and as such you can expect Helms and his family to get into a tonne of mischief and mishaps.
Chief amongst those is the family mistakenly soaking in sewage instead of a hot spring, childish gags, light sexual innuendos and many cameo appearances.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching “Vacation” as it stuck to the tried and tested formula of road trip disaster movies. It was a refreshing distraction from the monotony that has been this year’s so-called big money blockbuster movies, and Helms does what Helms does best.
His performance was effortless and funny.
He makes his co-stars look like a million dollars, especially Christina Applegate whose only goal was to try and pretend to know how to act.
It is just unfortunate that the newbies — Stebbins and Gisondo — were too plain and awful despite Helms’ many attempts to make them look good.
The kids bring nothing fresh and exciting or any form of enhancement to the movie.
However, this is not to say that the kids do not have a future in the film industry.
I think the writing team of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley didn’t know what to do with these two characters and failed to give them any worthwhile material to run with.
The result is that both came out annoying and a bit too one-dimensional.
The little love story between Gisondo’s James and a young Catherine Missal’s Adena also came out wrong on so many levels.
Here is the summary of how their young love was painted:
Act one — boy notices girl drive past in a car and the two share a gaze and a smile.
Act two — boy meets girl and they have a brief chat.
Act three — the two are now an item.
I mean like really? Come on!
However, the film’s biggest merit is the array of cameo appearances that range from old school comedy heavyweights like Chevy Chase to stars such as Keegan-Michael Keys, Charlie Day, Chris Hemsworth and Regina Hall.
Each of these stars has a unique sense of humour about them and I’m glad the writers of this film managed to incorporate all their talents seamlessly into the film.
It is a shame they could not do the same for the main cast.
In general, “Vacation” turns out to be everything you would expect from an Ed Helms movie. A terribly scripted and acted film, whose only bright spot is the fact that Helms is in it.
As of October 1, the film had already grossed US$103 million from a budget of about US$31 million.
Given most films range towards the US$1 billion mark these days, I would say “Vacation” has done pretty well for a B-rated film without any CGI, complex plot and big stars.
