Generic Gags Restrain Charming RV

     There are two very distinct variations of Robin Williams – the one seen on daytime talk shows and the one seen on late-night talk shows. The basic difference is that a far less-reserved form of him is present on late-night talk shows as there is a greater license for outrageous material between the hours of 10pm and 6am. When the network broadcast rights are sold for Williams’s film RV they may as well air it alongside Live with Regis and Kelly and The Ellen DeGeneres Show because, unfortunately, the version of him we see in the flick is particularly docile.

     This is hardly surprising since RV is, above all, a family flick. The writers play it safe and Williams is not about to anger parents with stepping outside of the family friendly circle. Still, for fans of Williams, RV may seem too tame. Its most wild moments are disappointingly generic – the kind you rarely see in movies anymore because filmmakers recognize them as possible comedy failures. While RV is hardly a comedy failure, a significant number of these generic gags get groans instead of laughs.

     Williams plays Bob Munro, a husband and father with a comfortable, high-paying job at a soft drink company, in the flick. Since his position has recently become unstable due to the threat of younger employees, when Bob’s boss tells him that he needs him in Colorado he must call off a family vacation to Hawaii. Making the best of things, Bob lies to his wife, played by Cheryl Hines, and kids, played by Josh Hutcherson and JoJo, rents an RV and drags them along to Colorado.

     Bob’s wife and kids are reluctant and start the trip off with cynical attitudes. Their preconceived expectations about the trip are all met, too, when the septic system gets backed up, a raccoon living in the oven attacks them and the parking break system fails. All of this pales in comparison to the family’s dismay in crossing paths with the Gornickes, an oddball family lead by Jeff Daniels and Kristen Chenoweth. Somewhere between fleeing from the Gornickes’ bus and getting swept off their feet by muddy rain water, the Munros discover that they may just be having a good time.

     The entire plot feels familiar if you have seen National Lampoon’s Family Vacation or the various other family road trip comedies and unfortunately RV never presents anything original to stand out of the crowd. Instead, the storyline is simplistic and predictable, offering the same ending as all of the rest. The road to get to that ending hardly makes up for the movie’s lack of creativity, either, focusing on physical slapstick jokes that don’t make the cut in terms of being funny.

     Fortunately, though, RV is charming, in part due to the actors. As I mentioned, Williams is restrained in this flick and so he won’t make you laugh out loud very often but he is still very likeable and fun to watch. Daniels steals the show, though, delivering Travis Gornicke in an abnormally solemn way. Travis comes off naïve like the rest of his family but with an acute pessimism of which he is vocally ashamed. The entire Gornicke family is interesting and is at the heart of many of the film’s laughs.

     Most of RV’s allure comes from director Barry Sonnenfeld (yes, that is Sonnenfeld’s picture on the side of the Munros’ RV), though. It is worth seeing RV on the big screen because of Sonnenfeld’s imaginative eye. The entire look of each scene is very colorful and strangely animated unlike many of the other motion pictures with similar plots. RV is a nice feel-good comedy that won’t have you rolling in the aisles but is a pleasant way to spend some time with your family.