RV (2006) Movie Review

RV (2006) Movie Review

I think it’s easy to forget how influential of a film National Lampoon’s Vacation truly is. Similarly to Halloween, Rocky, or Grease, the original Vacation movie set the blueprint for a staggering amount of other films that would try to imitate it, to some extent or another. “Road movies,” as I guess you could call them, are a pretty low-key genre that are more prevalent than they seem. Dumb and Dumber, Little Miss Sunshine, and even the Mad Max franchise are examples of this genre that have all become successful and popular over the years. But ever since Vacation, the idea of a dysfunctional family getting together and going on an off-the-tracks and absurdly spontaneous road trip has stuck around. Case in point, RV. RV, which came out in 2006, is genuinely unoriginal in that it uses a tried-and-true formula and changes almost nothing to achieve its purpose. I didn’t think I’d like this movie very much before I saw it. I watched it almost as an hour-and-a-half time burner, and judging by the reviews, I wasn’t expecting much, even though I’ve heard people say this is a funny movie many times. Of course I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable I found this film, especially the first 50 minutes or so. But I’ll get to that shortly. 

RV stars Robin Williams as Bob Munro, a company-executive family man who has a hard time handling his family, who just can’t seem to coexist peacefully. His wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines) is very uptight and doesn’t enjoy anything out of the ordinary. Casse Munro (JoJo), Bob’s teenage daughter, finds her family embarrassing and would rather rebel against them. The youngest of the family, Carl Munro (Josh Hutcherson), has a strict weight-lifting schedule and listens to hardcore rap music at volumes that anger everyone else. The Munros don’t have it all together, but one thing they can agree on is that their upcoming vacation to Hawaii will be a blast. When Bob’s boss, Todd (Will Arnett), informs them that they have to cancel the Hawaii trip and instead travel to Boulder, Colorado for work reasons, none of them take the news well. But Bob is determined to make the best out of the situation, and takes the opportunity to turn the excursion into a fun family road trip. The Munros soon realize they aren’t cut out for the wilderness, wild animals, or the other habitants of the highways whatsoever, making for a trip none of them will ever forget. 

This isn’t a bad movie and I actually liked it. Robin Williams plays his part earnestly and brings lots of charisma into the whole affair. I doubt I’ll be able to remember all of them off the top of my head, but there are probably a dozen or so laugh-worthy moments in RV, which is enough for me to call it funny. After the Munro’s RV has technical problems, they are forced to spend the night at an RV camp and run into an overly enthusiastic country-type family, led by patriarch Travis Gornicke (Jeff Daniels). During the middle of the night, Bob takes the chance to go to the camp’s bathroom and do some work on his laptop. One of the Gornicke children who is about 6 years old, Billy (Alex Ferris), walks into the bathroom moments later and greets Bob, who is sitting on the toilet typing away. Billy explains that he has a rare sleeping condition and has not slept in over five years. The next morning, when Bob walks out of the bathroom, Billy is outside hitting rocks into the distance with a baseball bat. This may not sound very funny but I laughed pretty loudly at it all. There are also some moments that, if you’ve ever encountered another human being before, you will most likely deeply relate to. At some point early on in their trip, the RV’s toilet gets clogged up, so Bob pulls over at an RV camp to fix the issue. While he’s fumbling around with the pipes on the outside the RV, trying fruitlessly to unclog the toilet, a whole family of dirty, uneducated hillbillies pull up beside Bob and sit back to watch Bob try to fix the problem. They give him all sorts of weird, obviously wrong advice and just keep telling him how to do it, attracting all sorts of attention. “Maybe get on the loudspeaker,” Bob tells them jokingly. Hopefully I’m doing a decent enough job of explaining this movie to you, but my point is, RV has some pretty funny moments that you’ll definitely find yourself laughing at if you enjoy simple, for-the-whole-family, slapstick-meets-sarcasm style humor. There’s not a whole lot to this movie, but it definitely achieves what it sets out to do, which is just to make you laugh a few times. 

RV is far from a perfect film, however. The second half of the movie drops way off in terms of laughs, and honestly gets a little boring. Most of the second half is just plot stuff pertaining to the whole subplot of Bob trying to do his best for his job and get his boss to not fire him. I won’t spoil the movie but the ending is pretty predictable as well. Some of the characters aren’t as likeable as they should be. Jamie Munro can actually get kind of annoying and doesn’t have a consistent personality as a character. There are also a whole bunch of random characters that just kinda pop up then are never heard from again, which gives the whole movie a slightly uncomfortable loose-ends vibe. And again, RV is a been-there-done-that sort of film. We’ve seen this type of thing before, executed in better ways and with more zeal. It’s your average family-comedy road movie, basically. 

Safety chart:

Violence: 3/10 - RV crash violence. Bob falls off the front of the RV. 

Language: 3/10 - Insults and minor cursing, but any real curse words are interrupted before they can be fully said, in true PG-rated fashion. 

Drinking/smoking: 3/10 - Some social drinking by adults. There is discussion of a bong. 

I’m not giving RV a bad review. I found it to be mostly funny and enjoyable. Any movie that can make me actually laugh I feel like is worthwhile, to at least some extent. You probably won’t be blown away by pretty much anything in this movie - the jokes, the acting, the writing, etc. But if you’re a fan of a good 1 hour 30 minute comedy full of simple and effective jokes, well there you go. I can see why people like this movie and if I said I didn’t laugh at it, I’d be lying. I’d probably give this a B- as a grade, which is the lowest “good” grade I can give a movie. But don’t get me wrong, I appreciated RV as a film. RIP Robin Williams. Chances are you might even have this movie on DVD sitting around somewhere.