Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

'Johnson Family Vacation' isn't your typical family-going-on-a-vacation type of movie.What it is on the other hand is an hour and a half comedy that didn't disappoint and actually had some laughs.It's really not a bad movie to watch.If you're looking for a clean and wholesome family movie, you'll probably be taking the wrong road if you show this movie to your kids.Expect everything from Cedric the Entertainer being partly nude to some brief sexual dialog and dancing.Teens and adults should be able to take the content and turn it into a fun movie that shouldn't be taken too seriously.So sit back and at least try to watch this movie and enjoy it for what it is.Just one question: Why on Earth would a hitchhiker name her pet alligator Twinkee?

A dysfunctional family goes on a vacation on the road, this resulting in a nightmare trip. The way you can make a movie like this is meshing all the clichéd jokes you've heard of in you entire lifetime, adding some building up jokes with no punch line and a storyline that is everything but original. Everything in this movie is terrible. First, you can't relate or identify with the characters. There's hardly any coherence with them. The ex-wife hates her ex-husband, and while he's trying to win her back, she pulls a juvenile prank on him (taking his bathing suit away and leaving him in the hot tub), and when she later sees his room and the pseudo-romantic atmosphere, she's touched. WHAT THE HELL. The little girl, a sad rip-off of Kady, from My Wife & Kids, was so annoying, I couldn't figure out why the father loved her so much. Lil Bow Wow is such a lousy actor, he couldn't play a teenager (which he is in reality). The whole acting sucked. It was extensively dramatic most of the parts, and when there was supposed to be funny stuff, they just don't do anything to emphasize the comedy (like there was any). None of the jokes were funny at all. The ones that can steal a chuckle are those you heard a thousand times before. The producers probably were in conflict with the writers and ended up filming jokes that weren't supposed to be in. The story was completely pointless, and nothing made sense. Why would somebody light a flare inside a hotel room? I was hoping that this would result in something like burning down the hotel, just like in Gone Fishin', but actually, nothing happens. If a weird girl carpools with you and makes a semi-satanic prayer to say grace, any God fearing Christian family would ditch her at the restaurant and drive away, but in the movie, they drag her along everywhere they go. If you see that the old Indian camp you used to go as a kid is turned into a casino, why would you give money to someone to see "real Indians", when there's obviously no Indians around at all? Why would you listen to eight tracks if you already have CD's with your favorite music? I knew it wasn't going to be a masterpiece after seeing the DVD label, but it still surprised me, after seeing Cedric the Entertainer could be so bad. the whole work was disgustingly not funny, and I have the feeling the writers stole a copy of the script for National Lampoon's Vacation and changed the characters from white to black. Not even Cedric's "witty" remarks made me crack up (except for "you need a condom to hear that music"). The whole film reminded of another one I loathed after watching glimpses of it on a bus trip to Mexico City: RV (sadly, the same exact movie, but with Robin Williams and without the little girl). I have a field day with bad movies, and this one is just another one for my list. However, I enjoy trashing them, NOT WATCHING THEM. This is supposed to be a family comedy. Trust me, you'll do your family a favor by not playing this in your home.

There are so many things wrong with this so-called 'comedy'. I would love to list everyone single one of the faults but as I am limited to 1,000 words, I won't be able to come close.To start with, the character's were undeveloped, unbelievable and dislikeable. In a road movie such as this one, where the only thing to carry the movie is the character's and their relationships, the audience needs to connect in some way with them to really be engaged with the story. The character's here are not engaging, they are mostly black stereotypes with no depth and do such unbelievable thing such as pee in plastic cup inside the car and throw each others CDs out of the car. The basic ideas for the family members were: separated parents, a wannabe rapper, a girl always on the phone and a sweet young girl. However, no one took these ideas and developed them into characters I could identify as real people.Another main problem of the movie is that it has set out to be a comedy but is, to put it simply, not funny. I didn't laugh once during this film, the jokes were just so dire. I just can't get my head around how having Nate climb a telephone pole in the middle of a corn field to get to the phone was supposed to be funny. Why was the phone at the top of a telephone pole in the middle of a corn field?The film is also lacking a point. I didn't understand why the five of them travelled through numerous states over several days just so they can compete for a meaningless trophy and so Bate can triumph over his obnoxious brother. As well as that, you don't Bate's family too win the trophy as you as spent the whole of the film building up a hate towards them.And finally, this film throws at us the biggest road movie cliché of the all, it shows us that the experience has made Bate a better person. He promises to be a better husband etc and you can see that the experience has had a profound effect on him but it was a bit too late in the film for it to try and get deep.Let me warn you now, do not watch this film. You will never get back the 97 minutes you spend on this.

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.