Week of May 4, 2006, Issue #550
FILM
RV: bad for the mental environment
TYSON KABAN / tyson@vueweekly.com
The family road-trip comedy RV is so horrible and unoriginal that it’s not even a stretch to imagine that the decision to center the film around a RV trip was because the script would automatically be half-written with jokes about raw sewage. Because that’s what the movie is, one shit(ty) joke after another.The other half is Robin Williams and his tired, worn out routine. He’s Bob Munro, a tool of a dad who decides that taking his distant family out on the road in an double-wide on wheels will somehow make his disaffected teenaged kids and spoiled wife like him more and bring them closer together.
And guess what? After a series of raccoon attacks and more heart-to-hearts than a season of Full House, they do finally realize that they love each other and, although they might not be perfect, they’re a real family.
The film’s emotional manipulation is so blatant and forced, and is largely dependent on potty humour for laughs. But with wickedly funny supporting actors like Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Will Arnett (Arrested Development) and perky, Broadway-pro Kristen Chenowith, it shouldn’t have to be.
But this past weekend, for some reason, $16 million-worth of moviegoers bought it. For a $5 rental fee, all they had to do instead was dust off their VCRs and watch John Hughes’s The Great Outdoors or any of the National Lampoon’s Vacation films. Because saying RV is shit would be giving it too much credit. It’s worse than that. It’s a fake, uninspired, piece of plastic shit. V
Now playing
RV
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
Written by Geoff Rodkey
Starring Robin Williams, Cheryl Hines,
Jeff Daniels, Kristen Chenowith,
Joanna “JoJo” Levesque