MOVIE REVIEW

RV

By Elliott Ryan
Guest Reviewer

What's This?

CBN.com – In RV, Robin Williams stars as Bob Munro, a father who has allowed his relationships with his wife and kids to grow distant over the years as he focused on his career. This seems to be a fairly common occurrence in movies. If there is a father at all in any given movie family unit, he tends to be distant and obsessed with his career. The good news for the Munro clan is that, as often happens in these movies, they are about to be forced into a situation where they learn how to get along with each other.

That is all we can ask for from a family comedy film. Right?

Perhaps we could ask that it be a little funnier. There definitely were some funny parts. But too many of them were scatological in nature. There were several examples of toilet humor that you just have to be a 12-year-old boy to fully appreciate. Much of the rest of the movie’s funny scenes were slapstick bits. Williams is great at physical comedy. But after a while, viewers will realize that all of his running around and falling down is hiding the fact that the plot is basically just some excuses for him to run around and fall down.

Perhaps we could also ask that the movie be a little cleaner. This movie is rated PG for crude humor, innuendo, and language by the Motion Picture Association of America. Of course, it seems like a movie containing those things might ought to be rated something a bit harsher than PG.

Having said all of that, the story was positive overall. Mr. Munro cancels his family’s vacation to Hawaii because his boss needs him to stay in the mainland to work on a business merger. So, he concocts a plan to both get his work done and take his family on a vacation by renting an RV and driving across several states to the location of his business meeting. To say that his family’s reaction was less than enthusiastic would be an understatement.

The road trip takes them to several different RV parks. Hijinks ensue as this upper class family gets used to “roughing it” in their rented RV. One particular family they meet at their first stop in an RV park seems to be stalking them. The Munros are uninterested in getting too close to these weirdos who travel all year round in their RV and seem to actually be an intact, close-knit family. The movie pokes fun at the type of people one might find inhabiting these RV camps at first. But eventually, these RV enthusiasts are portrayed as being pretty good people after all.

By movie’s end, Bob has to make a decision between his work and his family. To tell you which he chooses would be spoiling major plot points. But if you have ever seen a film with a similar plot, you could probably guess what happens in the predictable final scenes.

If you enjoy the boisterous, physical comedy of Robin Williams, you will probably like this movie. His character’s wife is played by Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm). Her job mostly is to react to Williams’ character. But she does a really good job of reacting. Her experiences in improv comedy no doubt groomed her ability to play off of her co-stars.

But if Robin Williams' roles in comedies in the past haven’t made you roll on the floor laughing, you can skip this one. You’ve probably seen it all before.

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