Ed Helms Vacation Remake Will Set His Career Back 30 Years

So Ed Helms is lined up to play Rusty Griswold from the Vacation movies, and as much as I like Ed, this is a crappy idea. New Line Cinema is close to a deal where the quirky Hangover star will portray Clark’s son, who will have his own family on a vacation, a road trip presumably, with hilarity along the way. Hooray.

Helms may be the closest thing we have to Chevy Chase, and Vacation brings back warm memories from my childhood. But do we really need yet another exhausted franchise about the misadventures of a trip gone wrong? Why can’t Hollywood come out with anything original? This is yet another attempt to cash in on another lazy idea. Where’s the old Hollywood of imagination and risk and excitement? Do we need to dose the writers with psychedelic drugs to induce some originality?

I admit the Vacation redux may have some appeal to my generation — kids raised on MTV and Atari who fell in love with Clark Griswold (and Christie Brinkley!), as did I when I knew nothing better. But leave it in the ’80s where it belongs. Don’t destroy a classic franchise and taint Helms’ rising star. This is not a working Vacation.