Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is ready to treat the family to a completely new sort of vacation – in Las Vegas! Of course, if you know Clark, you know that he doesn’t always think things through, and though his plan this time around seems to be to spend time with his family (as always), he is sidetracked (as always) by the allure of making easy money at the gambling tables.

Naturally he is joined by his lovely wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), and they also bring along kids Audrey (Marisol Nichols) and Rusty (Ethan Embry). As with the prior films in the “series”, in this go-round where the kids are played by different actors than their predecessors.

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Just as Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) comes home to visit his wife, he is met by a few less-than-upstanding citizens who want to cause trouble. Unfortunately for them, Poe is an Army Ranger, which means that they probably aren’t in the best position when it comes to a fight.

So when they decide to ambush him outside the bar, Poe gets the best of them. But when all is said and done, and one of them ends up dead on the ground, it is Poe who gets the short end of the stick. All he was doing was protecting his wife, but since he is trained as a deadly weapon, he ends up in prison.

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Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) may be the best trial lawyer you ever meet. He’s never lost a case. So when he manages to win one where he just knows the guy is guilty, he attracts some unexpected attention.

He gets an invitation from a fancy New York City law firm to come up and visit, all expenses paid, to pick a jury. And what’s more is that he gets to bring his wife Mary Ann (Charlize Theron) along for the ride. It’s too good to be true.

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Seth Warner (Aidan Quinn) is having a bad year. At the beach, his wife kisses him, then goes in for a dip. When he wakes some indeterminate amount of time later, she’s gone. There was no apparent struggle, she didn’t seem to leave him, she is just gone. Not long after (it seems to be shortly thereafter, but it isn’t stated), he is told that he’s being fired, for no apparent reason.

One thing after another simply goes wrong. It’s like he’s Job, and he is being tested. He decides that it isn’t fair, and he wants an audience with the almighty, so he decides to end it all one night on a building. Neighbors call his in-laws, Rachel (Courteney Cox) and Harry (Anthony LaPaglia) to talk him down, which they do. They also take him in. But he still wants to talk to God. Face-to-face.

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Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) lives a rather boring life. He has a monstrous house, and he comes home to it each night after he moves money around each day as an investment banker.

It appears that he’s done this for some time, running the family business since his father plunged to an early death by stepping off the roof of the family mansion (which seems to be the same one where Nicholas now lives). And that’s about all we know. Well, that and that today is Nicholas’ 48th birthday, the same age that his father was when he plunged to his death. It should be an interesting day.

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Kate (Jennifer Aniston) leads a generally happy life – there is just one problem. She has contributed over and over to her job, but she just can’t seem to get ahead. Most recently she saved the Gulden’s mustard account at the last minute with a creative approach, but now she’s not even on the team that will be handling their advertising.

When she confronts her boss, she is told to dress not for the job she has, but for the job she wants – which perhaps isn’t completely appropriate, since it has nothing to do with the way Kate dresses, and everything to do with the fact that she has no ties to the company.

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As a young child, Violet (Jaime Pressly of My Name is Earl), her sister Ivy (the only – tenuous – relation to “Ivy” in “Poison Ivy”) and her mother are thrown out of the house when her mother is found to be having an affair with what appears to be the gardener.

This is a problem not because her mother is married to the man of the house, as you might expect (and as might be normal), but because she is also having an affair with the man of the house, and this comes to light in loud fashion when the woman of the house walks in. Thus, they are kicked out, and have to find a new place to live.

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Louis Gossett Jr. (formerly just “Lou”) may not be a high-brow actor, but he usually at least picks movies that are entertaining. The 80s-style earring and strange eye coloring in this one, along with the bad script make this one aspire to be entertaining.

The only other marginally recognizable name, Amy Locane, is perhaps left wishing that Melrose Place hadn’t been canceled.

Whatever the case, it is Locane’s father, an archaeologist obsessed with the tomb of an Egyptian queen, who has suddenly taken ill with some strange markings on his wrist. We are to find out later that these are actually fingernail scratches – seven of them, from the dead queen herself, who had seven fingers on one hand.

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This film chronicles the struggles of a teenager in Hell’s Kitchen. The neighborhood isn’t a bad setting for a film, or even an uncommon one. Though perhaps not advertised as much, Daredevil was set there, as was Sleepers. What you do with the setting is what matters, and they didn’t do much with this one.

Claude (short for Claudia) is trying to find herself, and her best friend Ellen is helping – until Ellen finds Mark. Mark takes Ellen’s time, and also seems to have a problem with the fact that Claude and Ellen sleep in the same bed, both literally and figuratively. Then things really take a turn for the worse when it seems that Mark may have killed Claude’s new friend, Luke.

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Billionaire Charles Morse (Anthony Hopkins) is married to a model (played by Elle Macpherson), and for his birthday, he’s persuaded to go along on a wilderness photo shoot. All goes along swimmingly until Morse and his wife’s suitor Bob (Alec Baldwin) take off in search of a regular guy for use in a picture.

A medium role is played here by Harold Perrineau, who is perhaps better known as Michael from Lost. Apparently he likes playing people whose planes have crashed.

Anyway, their plane crashes, and they find themselves having to get back to the lodge – but they have no food, no water, not a single luxury. Sorry. Wrong show. The only other kink is that Bob wants to kill Charles to get his wife and his money. Of course, Charles also happens to be a fount of knowledge, that up until now is theoretical. Now he has a chance to use it.

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