ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 15, 1997 TAG: 9702190027
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAWRENCE VAN GELDER NEW YORK TIMES
To the legions who have returned as losers from the glitzy playgrounds of the Nevada desert can now be added the people responsible for ``Vegas Vacation.''
Although Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo as Clark Griswold and his wife, Ellen, are supported by everyone from Wallace Shawn and Sid Caesar to Christie Brinkley, Wayne Newton, Siegfried & Roy and, as the Griswolds' country cousin Eddie, Randy Quaid, someone neglected to infuse this outing with humor.
So while a soundtrack turns to the Beach Boys, Aram Khachaturian and Antonio Carlos Jobim, among others, in a desperate effort to substitute busy musical rhythms for the subtleties of genuine comic pace, the performers are left stranded.
Throughout this lame film, directed by Stephen Kessler, situations are developed - complicated directions to a hotel room, Clark clinging to the face of Hoover Dam, Ellen the object of Newton's seductive charm - and left to wither without a payoff.
At its more inventive, the dialogue runs to exchanges like this:
Clark: ``Eddie, I need to be alone.''
Eddie: ``Do you want me to go with you?''
This latest excursion with the Griswold family, introduced in ``National Lampoon's Vacation'' in 1983, begins in Chicago when klutzy Clark wins approval for his long-life food preservative (four-year-old cookies, eight-year-old milk) and is rewarded with a bonus and time off.
Reluctantly accompanied by their two teen-age children, Rusty (Ethan Embry) and Audrey (Marisol Nichols), the Griswolds fly west.
Before long, Clark is on his way to losing $22,600, most of it to an annoying blackjack dealer played by Shawn. Ellen is being serenaded, wined and dined by Newton. Audrey is wrapped in a skin-tight dress and dancing in a cage. And the underage Rusty, armed with a fake ID and beginner's luck, is emptying slot machines, winning cars, being befriended by high rollers and learning the pleasures of cigars, parties, pools and bikini-clad companions.
Along the way, the Griswolds are reunited with Cousin Eddie (Quaid) and his wife, Catherine (Miriam Flynn), who live with their punky brood outside of town in a tumble-down trailer on snake-infested property once used to test hydrogen bombs.
Cousin Eddie, an uninhibited boor, has a habit of turning up at inopportune moments, and it is a sign of the film's impoverished wit that it seeks humor in dwelling on the pasta smeared around his mouth at a $1.49 all-you-can-eat restaurant.
The audience can join the Griswolds in being happy to go home.
"Vegas Vacation"
A Warner Bros. release showing at the Salem Valley 8 and the Valley View 6. Rated PG for sexual suggestiveness, rattlesnakes and gambling. The running time is 90 minutes.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB