Two sulking kids, one malfunctioning motor home and miles of open highway conspire against Robin Williams in director Barry Sonnenfeld's intermittently funny road comedy RV (Columbia).
Williams is Bob Munro, an overworked energy-drink executive who is pressured by his boss into cancelling a family holiday in Hawaii to attend a merger presentation in Colorado.
Afraid to tell the truth to his wife, Jamie (Cheryl Hines), and their children — 15-year-old daughter Cassie (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque) and 12-year-old son Carl (Josh Hutcherson) — Bob pitches the idea of driving from Los Angeles to Colorado in a recreational vehicle as a way for the family to spend quality time together.
Needless to say, the change of vacation plans is met with unanimous lack of enthusiasm.
Much comic mayhem ensues as Bob's plan turns disastrous. Adding to the insanity is a hard-to-ditch clan of RV nomads — headed by Jeff Daniels and Tony Award-winner Kristin Chenoweth — whom Bob befriends at a trailer-park hootenanny.
Williams gives a more reigned-in performance, but still has ample opportunity to flex his comic muscles. Hines also proves quite funny, shedding the shackles of her straight role as comedian Larry David's wife on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Despite their good work — and amusing turns by Daniels and Chenoweth — RV fails to get great laugh mileage and feels like a knockoff of National Lampoon's Vacation. The humor is broad, if harmless — Bob chasing after the runaway camper, battling raccoons or wreaking havoc behind the wheel — though one scene involving the RV's waste disposal system is unnecessarily distasteful.
Bumps aside, the film imparts a warm message about family bonding as an antidote for the disconnectedness of modern home life. If you don't like silly slapstick, you're not likely to find your kicks on this Route 66 romp.
The film contains some mildly crude humor, including a gross-out scatological sight gag, sexual innuendo, and scattered crass language and light profanity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
(This review appears courtesy of US Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting.)