Rating of
3/4
Some good laughs in a good family movie
The M.O.W. - wrote on 08/01/08
Overworked "Bob Munro" (Robin Wiliams) plans to leave for Hawaii with his strained family who need some serious quality time together. However, "Bob" changes the planned trip to a road trip to a lake in Colorado he and his parents went to when he was a child in a recreational vehicle which has a large advertisement of the RV rental place on one side of it.
As soon as they hit the road (that they live on), things begin to go wrong. And the trip, which is partly a ruse so "Bob" doesn't lose his job, starts off to further distance the once close-knit family from one another.
At an RV camp, they come across the endearing, but rather annoying "Gornickes", a family of full-time RVers. No matter how hard the "Munros" try to ditch them, they always show up.
There are a lot of verbal and physical comedy throughout this movie. Some of the verbal jokes flopped in the theater I was in, but many of the physical comedy worked quiet well.
Williams comes across the screen as a sometimes campy, but caring father and husband who forgets to put his family before his career at first. And we only get to see one time where Williams works his verbal comedic magic, even though it's a bit toned down for his character. However, he is pure Robin Williams when the slapstick comedy rears its head.
"Jamie Munro" (Cheryl Hines) does a fairly good job as the "straight-woman" for Williams. And a decent job in the comedic scenes herself.
The "Munro" children are quite good in the comedic scenes. Both have pretty good timing, and work well with Williams and the slapstick comedy. Pop singer, Joanna "JoJo" Levesque, who is in her acting debut, does an excellent job playing the always moody "Cassie" and has signs of being a pretty good comedic actress. Josh Hutcherson does a good job with his role with the weight-lifting obsessed youngest child, and has some pretty good scenes with Williams.
The "Gornickes" are played in a very campy manor, and could work well as the wacky neighbors in a sitcom. Jeff Daniels, whom I failed to recognize until about half-way through the film, does an excellent job as the head of the family. Kristin Chenoweth also does a good job as the always smiling, annoying matriarch. The children are not well defined.
Barry Sonnenfeld does a pretty good job directing the film, as he uses some unique angles and shows off the scenery of the land quite well. Sadly, he doesn't uses Williams talent for verbal comedy to the movie's advantage.
Overall, this is a pretty good family comedy that might become a good addition to the family DVD/video collection.
