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So this is all by way of suggesting what appealed to me about Chase in the first Vacation film and to acknowledge that there were moments in the early part of his career where he did opt for something different (Deal of the Century, Funny Farm, Memoirs of an Invisible Man) and that these films, whatever their flaws, were immeasurably improved by virtue of the fact that Chase showed up and gave a performance. I used to yearn for him to get a career resurgence from a director like Tarantino (if not the man himself) but became resigned to the fact that that was apparently not what Chase desired for himself and that he wasn't going to be rediscovered a la Michael Parks or Robert Forster.

There were some positive signs in recent years, however. He had a small but finely tuned supporting role as Naomi Watts' agent in the indie film Ellie Parker; a fiery and vulgar performance "inspired" by Mel Gibson's real-life police troubles, on Law and Order; and has returned to weekly television programming on NBC's "Community" playing the same sort of smug character he once did but with three decades of humility and humanity as compensation. I don't know if I would cite the show as a personal favorite, but I enjoy the depth of the comic ensemble and hey, any Joel McHale is better than no Joel McHale.

But now to turn back the clock to 1985, 1988 and 1989 when Chase was as hot as he would ever be at the box office and people actually clamored to see him in sequels. If nothing else, he had the good fortune to be associated with films that inspired great theme songs. Kenny Loggins contributed "I'm Alright" to Caddyshack and "Nobody's Fool" to Caddyshack II (and in-between delivered classic '80s pop for films with storylines about small towns that ban dancing, Navy pilots with big egos and bigger planes, and a truck-driving neglectful dad who risks the love of his son on an arm-wrestling match. That's quite the range). Lindsey Buckingham penned the shoulda-been-a-hit "Holiday Road" for Vacation and it's a sign of the lack of invention in European Vacation that this gets hauled out twice to diminished effect. All it does is remind the audience how funny the first film was.

I recall a trend among TV shows of my childhood where there would be a feature-length movie in which the cast would go abroad and inevitably wind up in romantic entanglements and usually encounter a jewel thief. Family Ties went to London. The Facts of Life did it twice: going to England the first time and "Down Under" the second time. I bring this up because European Vacation feels like one of those pointless, only vaguely enjoyable excursions. Plus, in a show of creative bankruptcy, it actually brings on a pair of thieves in the third act, as if to acknowledge that - lacking a Wally World style payoff - European Vacation is building towards absolutely nothing and needs to resort to a car chase and gun play.

The Griswolds go abroad for two weeks on the Continent and the basic joke, repeated ad infinitum, is that the "foreigners" are rude, vulgar and, in subtitles for our benefit, condescending towards the clan. The Griswolds, for their part, are annoying pains in the ass, equally unpleasant to be around. The middle-class likable doofus that Clark was the first time around has been replaced with a hostile control freak intent on sucking the life out of his family unit. Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle are wasted in supporting roles. Two of the most gratuitous displays of boobs ever occur in short succession (which I didn't complain about when I was ten, believe me). The late Dana Hill is saddled with a character whose obvious eating disorder is played for laughs. The list of inanities goes on.

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