The Worst Film Ever

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The movie would have been good except: Little Bow Wow, Bow Bow, or Big Bow Wow, whatever you want to call him, was not funny. Nor was the girl who played his sibling, nor was Vannessa Williams, and nor was Steve Harvey. Cedric the Entertainer was the only beacon of light in this failed attempt at a family comedy. The situation just didn't make for a very good comedy, especially when this scenario has already been done so well by Chevy Chase and others. The road trip/family vacation gone wrong is a very played out story. This was not the right platform for an original or successful comedy, and it was not the right platform for Cedric the Entertainer to be as his name indicates: entertaining. It was somewhat humorous and it was bearable, it is more of a "nothing else is on" type movie.

In "Johnson Family Vacation," which is little more than an all-black version of the National Lampoon Vacation movies from twenty or so years ago, Nate Johnson loads his wife and three kids into the car and drives from their home in Los Angeles to a family reunion in Missouri. Along the way, of course, the family meets with a series of comic misadventures that threaten to prevent them from reaching their destination.Despite the derivative storyline, the early scenes in the film exhibit a kind of playful spirit that bodes well for the rest of the movie. This is due in no small measure to Cedric the Entertainer, who, unlike so many of the comics who appear in these types of movies, doesn't feel the need to stand apart from the material in order to draw attention to himself. Indeed, it is the laid-back, unfussy way in which he delivers his lines that makes them so funny. He is also blessed with an attractive supporting cast that includes Vanessa Williams as his long-suffering wife and Bow Wow as his mouthy but generally good-hearted teenage son. The movie even includes some clever little satirical jabs at the accoutrements and symbols of modern-day black culture as Nate, the traditionalist, who listens to '70's soul on his worn-out 8-tracks, goes toe-to-toe with his adolescent gansta' rap adolescents.But as the Johnsons tootle their way across country in their souped-up SUV, we begin to notice that the film itself has stalled out. About halfway through, it dawns on us that the movie isn't really going anywhere, that it is merely playing out variations on incidents we've seen earlier in the film, and that the set pieces and situations aren't nearly as interesting or outrageous as they should be. This is truly a pity because, given the attractive cast, we really want to like "Johnson Family Vacation" more than we ultimately do.Still, all things considered, this makes for a reasonable diverting, mindless time at the movies, and Cedric the Entertainer's moniker has rarely seemed so apt.

This movie is so lame, so cobbled together, so lazy that it is truly one of the worst comedies made in the past decade. Cedric might have to sell The Entertainer part of his name soon if he keeps making crap like this and The Honeymooners. I mean, give it up, you are not a LEAD. As part of an ensemble, you are terrific (as Cedric proved in Barbershop) but the first thing they do is take a live wire like Cedric and have his father character in this movie be rather straight laced and conservative. Great - yes, let's smooth over all the rough edges that make this comic interesting. Of course, the minute a gag needs him to be leering and lewd, he does. There is no character reality in ANY of the characters. Lame, obvious gags unfold like you are watching an old vaudeville routine or a Popeye cartoon. They're good, Steve Harvey's bad, so let's watch what happens. Also, there is a TERRIBLE subplot where a guy is basically stalking Cedric's wife - Vanessa Williams. And at the end when the guy shows up at the family reunion in a huge semi and basically runs over the reunion - he gets out with flowers and claiming his love for Cedric's wife. So what happens. Well, Cedric's Momma - you know those heavy set chuckling mommas that Hollywood movies have to have - well, she walks up and slugs the stalker in the face - he gets knocked out and that is their solution to the problem. Yes,let's forget that he will eventually wake up and probably be even more adamant to bother the woman but what the heck - violence solves everything - especially when it's one of those funny one punch, quick knockout punches. Hee hee. And of course, at the end everyone changes and learns a lesson not because it has been written that way for these characters to develop but only because it is the end of the movie and time for this stuff to happen anyway. So false, so not funny. Awful.

This movie is simply not good. It wasn't funny and was a very lame attempt to try something similar to National Lampoon's Vacation. There's hi-jinks at the hotel pool, going out to see silly things, etc... In this, the two parents are separated but are going to the husband's family reunion with the 3 kids. Considering they only spend a couple of hours at the reunion, why did they even go? Bow Wow basically uses this role as self-promotion since he raps. And when they get to the reunion, the relatives are dull and dumb, especially uncle earl.I can't believe any of the actors would even let their name appear in the credits. If they weren't already famous, this movie would be career suicide. Even the music is terrible.FINAL VERDICT: A snore fest.