Williams plays Bob Munro, an overworked father of two who is told by his unsympathetic boss (Arnett): “Cancel your family vacation to Hawaii and give a presentation for me in Colorado or you will lose your job.”
Not wanting to tell his wife (Hines) the truth, Bob changes their holiday plans at the last minute and arranges a cross country caravan trip (to Colorado for his presentation), claiming that he wants to spend some quality time with the family.
Unsurprisingly, the kids aren’t too keen on this change of plan however (they nickname the RV “the big rolling turd”), and rather than entering into the holiday spirit, decide to make their dear old Dad’s life a living hell instead.
They say:
Total Film: “Sit back as Williams does his schtick – albeit the PG rated, neutered version – and everything else happens according to The Big Book Of Family Comedies.”
BBC Films: “Despite its cheesy message, RV is a well written comedy and welcome evidence of Williams' talent as a comic actor.”
Empire: “Williams’ virtuoso hijinking and Daniels’ Huggy Bearish bonhomie save this from complete ignominy, but we’ve seen it all before.”
We say:
“It’s not as bad as it looks” says Williams at the beginning of this predictable road trip comedy… err, yes it is actually.
While seeing Williams covered in a shower of shit in one particularly unsanitary episode may draw a certain satisfaction form some viewers, there’s not much else to recommend from this ironically pedestrian offering.
Formulaic, cheesy and only sporadically amusing – surely everyone is fed up of watching Williams pretending to be black and saying stuff like “my bad” and “what’s tripping dogs?” by now – director Barry Sonnenfeld’s latest is a far cry from his glory days of “Men in Black” and “Get Shorty”.
On the plus side, Daniels puts in a nice turn as the father of a rival caravanning family, and Arnett is given some decent lines as Bob’s ruthless boss - in a role reminiscent of that American film producer in the Orange adverts.
Overall, however, “RV” is definitely not recommended viewing.
CAST
Robin Williams, Jeff Daniels, Cheryl Hines, Kristin Chenoweth,
Joanna ‘JoJo’ Levesque, Josh Hutcherson, Will Arnett, Tony Hale
DIRECTOR
Barry Sonnenfeld
TIME
98 mins
POSTED...
Sat 10 Jun 2006 at 12:28am
