YMMV / Vacation

• Critical Dissonance: Critics pretty much hated the movie. Audiences, on the other hand, were more receptive.
• Moment of Awesome: The confrontation at the end of the movie between the Griswalds and the family of the douche pilot from the beginning. It's one thing just to see someone so despicable get his ass kicked with Overcrank, but after all that Russ and his family went through, it's especially satisfying.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Rusty looks at a collection of family photos from his childhood, which are in fact, stills from each of the previous four movies. In doing so, we not only get a clever continuity nod but also a touching tribute to every actor who preceded Ed Helms and Leslie Mann as Rusty and Audrey.
  • As Audrey mocks Rusty's decision to go back to Walley World, Stone respects Rusty's intentions and goal.
  • When Rusty tells Clark he was on his way back home, Clark tells him to continue his trip to Walley World. He even gives him the Family Truckster in place of his blown up Tartan Prancer.
    Clark: You had a dream of taking your family to Walley World. Never let that go. I know I didn't.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Wally World has a new rollercoaster called the Velociraptor that gets up to four-hour wait times. Universal Studios Orlando welcomed the Jurassic World Velocicoaster in 2021 with four-hour wait times on opening day.
• Jerkass Woobie: Stone when he accidentally drops several F-bombs on live TV in a Deleted Scene. He even covers himself in shame with the green screen.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some people just wanted to see Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo as Clark and Ellen again.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • The amount of vomiting Debbie does when she's trying to prove to the college kids that she's just as spry as she was back in the day.
  • The "hot springs" scene. They even mistook the feces in the water as mud.
• One-Scene Wonder: Hannah Jeter as the "Girl in the Red Ferrari".
  • Charlie Day as Chad, the suicidal kayak guide.
• The Scrappy: Kevin, who's supposed to be an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, but is hated for coming across as less of a bully and more of a complete sociopath who's considered too loathsomely mean spirited to actually be funny.
• Take That, Scrappy!: It's easy to enjoy the scene where James stands up to Kevin for mistreating him, even if it was a relatively mild beatdown. Not to mention when James puts the plastic bag over Kevin like Kevin did to him earlier on.
• Sequelitis: General consensus is that its too derivative of the original while lacking its charm and being overly vulgar to the point of being unfunny.
• The Woobie:
  • It's hard not to feel sorry for James when he has to put up with Kevin's mistreatment towards him.
  • Rusty could count as well, since he's going through the same shenanigans like his father Clark.

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