Review: RV

The other night, if you recall from my last post, I was out with my roommate Greg and his sister and her friends. If you didn't recall, well then, I just recapped it. One of her friends, Veronika, mentioned she was in a movie recently. I assumed it would be some crappy Canadian indie film, but she said it was actually RV, the new Robin Williams family comedy. I was taken aback, and immediately set out to see it, just to see if she was bullshitting me. Well, there she was, 10 minutes in, throwing some goo into Will Arnett's face (see right). See, she plays the friend of Bob Munro's (Williams) daughter, Cassie (JoJo, the singer). They are at a party thrown by Bob's boss (Arnett) and she confronts him about the unhealthy effects of his company's soda, Pure Vibe. That's about the extent of her appearance, but it sets up the rest of the film.

Bob, under orders from his boss, has to cancel his trip to Hawaii to make a presentation in Colorado to the head of Alpine Soda, in order to merge with them. But rather than just explain the situation to his family, he decides to change those vacation plans to drive to Colorado in a rented RV. This doesn't sit well with his wife Jamie (Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines, a definite MILF, if I do say so), his daughter, who'd rather be surfing or his son Carl (Zathura's Josh Hutchinson), who'd rather be lifting weights. But they relent, and after a few false starts and damaged property, they are off. Leaving from Malibu, their first stop is in Arizona, where the RVets get a kick out of Bob's style of dumping the septic. It's here that the Munros meet the Gornickes, headed by Jeff Daniels, a traveling troupe of folk-singing, home-schooling, roadkill-stew-making bumpkins. Of course, the Munros can't handle that kind of family togetherness, and quickly hit the road again. So it goes, with the RV taking all kinds of damage that I'm certain the insurance won't cover, and the family getting ever closer, while Bob tries to put together the presentation of his life to save his job. Wacky hijinks and crazy misunderstandings ensue, and everyone learns a lesson about who they are and the important things in life. Pretty standard stuff, really.

The TV trailers for the movie don't really do it justice, to be honest. I thought, "Oh God, it nothing but crazy raccoons and goo flying through the air," but there's a lot more here than meets the eye. The family messages about staying close in this era of e-mail and iPods are very applicable and not too heavy-handed. There aren't many moments where you kind of slap your head and roll your eyes. And it proves that Robin Williams can be funny without resorting to the gay hairdresser and black preacher routines.

∆∆∆ of 5