IMAGINE this. Writers and directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, together with seven producers (the guys who make the money decisions) sitting at a table deciding whether to resuscitate the National Lampoon franchise (the original one starring Chevy Chase and Beverley D’Angelo as the Griswolds, not the more recent knock-offs) and, if so, what sort of plot?

Yes. And the same as it was back in the 1980s, that is Griswolds turned loose to wreak mayhem on the highways and byways. But this time, it’s their son Rusty (Ed Helms) who flies as pilot in command for a short-haul airline, wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) and sons James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins).

The consequences of those decisions is a movie for which the most apt description is an overarching satire on a big bunch of lesser satires on the social, cultural, economic, moral and other American behavioural traits. The instructions probably directed Daley and Goldstein to favour stupidity rather than wit, to leave no shibboleth unplumbed, to favour coarse and grimy humour above refinement, to stroke the edge of eroticism without actually showing it, to take full advantage of the (not entirely unwelcome) relaxation of vocabulary in all media except print.

And that’s what Daley and Goldstein delivered.

Hoyts Woden, Dendy, Capitol 6 and Limelight