On December 20, 2003, NBC ruined many Christmas holidays by fostering this mess of a movie — directed by Nick Marck and written by National Lampoon publisher Matty Simmons, who at one time was the Executive Vice President of Diners Club. He is not John Hughes, Doug Kenney, Henry Beard or Michael O’Donoghue, as this film will show. I don’t know — maybe I just hated this movie so much that I am minimizing his contribution. Maybe he was a good writer. This movie doesn’t prove that.

Look, we all love Cousin Eddie. Do we love him enough to watch him as the main character for an entire movie, along with his family, which includes Catherine (Miriam Flynn), Clark the third (Jake Thomas), Audrey Griswold (Dana Barron, the first time someone has played a Griswold kid more than once) and Uncle Nick (Ed Asner). They even got Eric Idle to show up for a bit, bringing back his character from National Lampoon’s European Vacation.

Eddie gets fired by Fred Willard because he’s dumber than a chimpanzee, who then bites him and earns his family a settlement that turns into a Hawaiian vacation guided by Muka Luka Miki, who seems Hawaiian but is not, but neither is South Korean actress Sung Hi Lee.

It’s a rough watch and one that makes you wonder whether this needed to be made. Eddie is the steak sauce on the prime rib that are two of the three Vacation movies, but a steak covered in A1 tastes horrible. Follow that rule and avoid this.