National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2 (also known as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure) is a 2003 American made-for-television comedy film. It premiered December 20, 2003 on NBC and stars Randy Quaid and Miriam Flynn reprising their roles as Cousin Eddie and Catherine, along with Dana Barron reprising her role as Audrey Griswold. It is a spin-off sequel to the 1989 film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Why It's Not A Vacation

 * 1) The main problem with this film is that it lacks the charm of the original.
 * 2) Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and Ellen Griswold (Beverly D'Angelo) are never seen or even mentioned.
 * 3) The visual effects themselves are lazy, and poorly done, with the shark scene being the worst offender.
 * 4) Loads of bad fart jokes, such as when Uncle Eddie using their pet dog to cut in line.
 * 5) Any non-fart joke is also far from funny, since most of them completely fall flat, like the main reason why they're even stuck on the island anyway was that the tide had carried the boat away.
 * 6) The acting is just straight up bad, especially when compared to it's prequel. To make it worse, talented actors like Fred Willard and Ed Asner were wasted in this shit-heap, making the acting even worse.
 * 7) Speaking of Ed Asner, his character Uncle Nick is very unlikeable and gross, as he's just portrayed as a perverted old man who keeps hitting on the family's beautiful Asian women guide.
 * 8) Uncle Eddie seems to have lost all of his charm whilst in the first film he was charming, dim-wilted, but lovable goofy side character, but in this film he just acts borderline stupid to the point where he isn't funny at all.
 * 9) A horrible soundtrack, unlike the original.
 * 10) Aubrey Grisworld, while nice to see fully-grown up and portrayed by her original actress, has a horrific execution, with her being portrayed as depressed, due to her dumping her boyfriend Daniel.
 * 11) The plot is rather bland, and generic and has been done better in other movies.
 * 12) The cameos are pointless, with one being with Eric Idles that also played in another Christmas vacation movie called "European Vacation".
 * 13) Horrible, and yet lazy CGI background, the most notable being the background of the island in one scene.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Some of the actors do reprise their roles in this movie, such as Randy Quaid who played Uncle Eddie in the original.
 * 2) Some of the jokes are funny.
 * 3) It was nice to see Dana Barron reprise her role as Aubrey Grisworld, as her character is now a fully-grown adult, despite her character being wasted on a depressing note.

Reception
The film was critically panned by fans, and critics of the original the movie, it was given a 2.7/10 on IMDB.

Trivia

 * Beverly D'Angelo (Ellen Griswold) originally stated that she didn't know why she wasn't asked to reprise her role and said she would have been more than happy to do it. After the film's negative reception however, she later stated that she was glad not to appear in it.