Johnson Family Vacation | ||||
Christopher Erskin Cedric the Entertainer, Vanessa L. Williams, Bow Wow, Solange Knowles, Gabby Soleil, Shannon Elizabeth, Steve Harvey 2004 |
Road-weary? Don't take "Johnson Family Vacation." It's a sitcom-styled slapstick journey that recasts and reconfigures "National Lampoon's Vacation" with an African-American sensibility and it is tired, tired, tired. In the "Barbershop" movies, Cedric the Entertainer is as entertaining as he can be they're reasonably well written and provide him with a forum for outrageous characterizations. With its leaden dialog, pat situations, predictable predicaments and some downright awful song-and-dance numbers at a climactic family reunion picnic, "Johnson Family Vacation" does Cedric no favors. He plays hyper-meticulous father and husband Nate Johnson, who's trying to hold his family together during a trial separation from his wife (Vanessa L. Williams). Nate convinces his wife to join him and their three kids on a trip from California to Missouri, to put on a good show for his own mama at the annual gathering of the Johnson clan. They set off in a bling-blinged Caddie with flippant son DJ (junior rapper Bow Wow), boy-crazy teenage daughter (Solange Knowles) and cutie-pie youngest daughter (Gabby Soleil) in tow. It's downhill from there. Steve Harvey is grating as Nate's ultra-competitive brother. Shannon Elizabeth is picked up on the way as a token white hottie/freakazoid. Someone should get his license revoked. | |||
I'm Not There / Love In The Time Of Cholera / Gone Baby Gone / Delirious / 2 Days In Paris / more... |