MOVIE REVIEW 'Johnson Family Vacation': a big disaster

The film is mean-spirited and just not funny.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Although clearly intended to be a sort of Def-Jam answer to Chevy Chase's National Lampoon flicks, "Johnson Family Vacation" plays like a failed UPN sitcom pilot instead.
A laugh-deficient misfire whose torturous 96 minutes feels like an eternity, it makes the worst entry in the Chase series (1985's "European Vacation") look like the best (1989's "Christmas Vacation") by default.
The cast
Cedric the Entertainer is Nate Johnson, a stressed-out LA insurance agent who drives his obnoxious brood -- estranged wife Dorothy (Vanessa Williams); teenage daughter Nikki (Solange Knowles); wannabe rapper son D.J. (Bow Wow); and toddler Destiny (Gabby Soleil) to the annual Johnson family reunion in Caruthersville, Mo. (The film is so inept that it takes a good half-hour to figure out that Nate and Dorothy are separated.)
Nate's desire to make it to Caruthersville has more to do with beating out his despised brother Mack (Steve Harvey) for the Johnson's "Family-of-the-Year" trophy than any abiding love for his kith and kin.
Momma Johnson (Aloma Wright) is a nasty old shrew who is constantly pitting brother against brother. When favorite son Mack gives her a wide-screen TV, she asks him to position it between framed pictures of JFK and Jesus. (And that's one of the brighter gags here!)
Bad trip
Naturally the family's trip goes from bad to worse. Between all the constant squabbling and bickering, they manage to get arrested for speeding, run out of gas, wreck their state-of-the-art SUV, and pick up a creepy hitchhiker (Shannon Elizabeth wasted on a thankless role that makes absolutely no sense) who's some kind of voodoo priestess. The reunion itself, which should have been the centerpiece of the movie, is dispensed with in about 20 minutes of screen time, and consists mostly of tiresome shouting matches between Nate and Mack.
As boy-crazy clothes-horse Nikki, Knowles displays little beyond her navel. In an attempted goof on her more famous older sister, Knowles' best line is, "My belly button is way hotter than Beyonc & eacute;'s." Groan.
Bow Wow (the bratty D.J.), so likable and appealing in "Like Mike" two years ago when he was still billed as 'Lil Bow Wow, is as tiresome as everyone else here.
Director
First-time feature director Christopher Erskin (who, amusingly enough, lists Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, and Steve Spielberg as his idols in the press notes) has made a loud, ugly and thoroughly mean-spirited disaster that's a sure-fire candidate for my 2004 10-worst list.
Just about the only funny thing about "Johnson Family Vacation" is the "what-were-they-smoking?" casting of former Miss America Williams and portly Cedric as husband and wife. I guess they had the same matchmaker as "Gothika"'s Halle Berry and Charles S. Dutton, an equally unlikely recent big-screen couple.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.