2.5/4  RV
RV is a family film that has only a few funny parts, but not enough to consider it a comedy. Robin Williams is good as usual, Cheryl Hines is okay and JoJo is only decent in her film debut. Jeff Daniels and Kristin Chenoweth are very fun a... (read full)

3/4  Some good laughs in a good family movie
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 ... (read full)

2/4  RV Quick Review
Predictable comedy that adds little new to the crazy vacation genre but has enough fun moments to make it at least watchable. Still, there are better options for comedy out there, so only watch this if there's nothing else available.

2.5/4  RV Quick Review
A silly family road comedy with plenty of stock gags (the racoons, feces, etc.), but it has its moments. My favorite part is when Robin Williams slightly lets his car move forward as someone walks in front of it. Final Grade: C+

2/4  RV Quick Review
Full of predictable slapstick and situation-based humor. Has a few funny moments but mostly a tired remake of every vacation-goes-wrong-and-pulls-the-family-together movie.

5/5 "I've got my ferns..."
  by Damian Gunn (I am everywhere)
Okay, I actually loved this movie...I thought it was funny and entertaining and just what I needed to see, something pointless and yet does the trick perfectly. You can always rely of Robin Williams for that. No, it's not the smartest comedy but it's not like we thought we were walking into 'Fargo' people, we were walking into a family vacation comedy that's full of slapstick laughs and gross humor, and that should be what you expected. Robin Williams plays Bob, a man whose a slave to his job, a job he's afraid he may lose. He's so afraid that he actually cancels his family's vacation to Hawaii and takes them on an RV trip to Colorado with hopes to sneak off to a meeting with his germaphobe boss in order to keep his job. Along the way (of course keeping his true intentions secret) he tries to recreate the bond he once had with his family. This of course starts of shakey since neither his wife (Cheryl Hines) nor his children, teenage daughter Cassie (JoJo) whose going through her rebelous "i hate mommy and daddy" stage and his young son Carl (Josh Hutcherson) whose insecure about his small size, are supportive. But after all the problems with sewage, weird hillbilly RV neighbors the Gornicke family (led by Jeff Daniels and Kristin Chenoweth) and some pesky racoons their is a family bonding moment that is shattered by a bowel problem (sort-of) a sinking RV and the exposure of Bob's secret meeting. In the end, RV may be predictable family fun, but the point still remains that it's family fun, and that's gotta amount to something.

4/5 National Lampoon's Vacation for the 21st Century
  by Michael J. Tresca (Fairfield, CT USA)
I've read reviews of RV, and they uniformly panned the movie as piffle; humorous tripe that reinforced family values and light humor, wasting the talents of Robin Williams.

Give me a break.

See, the implication that the family road trip movie is somehow a form of high art is fallacious to begin with. Although my family (and my wife's family) venerates the National Lampoon vacation movies as the ultimate in comedy, the truth of the matter is it's all a string of silly gags and ridiculous foils. It takes real skill to play a perpetually optimistic patriarch in the face of modern indignities and family squabbles. If anything, the family road trip movie is really just a condensed version of half the sitcoms on television. And there's a reason those sitcoms are still around, even though the critics patiently explain over and over how dumb they are.

They're right. It IS dumb. But then, so is having to deal with the inanities of modern life. RV is merely an update of a long established tradition of pitting a man (Bob Munro played by Robin Williams), his hot wife (Cheryl Hines), his teenage daughter (Joanna Levesque) and pre-teen son (Josh Hutcherson) against the world and seeing who comes out on top. And we root for Bob all the way.

What makes RV so appealing is that it doesn't deviate at all from the formula but cleverly updates all the trials and tribulations. Bob's affection for his adorable daughter at two years old is sharply contrasted by her wisecracking personality as a teenager. How many parents stare at their kids and wonder what happened to the darling who never wanted to leave their side? Bob's career hinges on finishing a presentation, and much of the movie is taken up with his personal struggle to find a signal for his Blackberry. Road warriors feel his pain. And as an older, funnier man, Bob constantly has to watch his back as younger, inexperienced climbers try to steal the spotlight.

In short, the Monroe struggles are the new struggles of the middle class. Sure, Clark Griswold didn't have these problems, but then the National Lampoon movies were made decades ago. RV brings it all up to date with one difference: unlike Cousin Eddie and his brood, the country folk are actually the wiser and more decent family. We could learn a lot from their home values, preaches Brother Sonnenfeld. Maybe he's right.

When RV was playing at my parents' house, we were waiting for my brother to join us to watch a DVD. Instead, we watched (and laughed at) RV all the way through.


4/5 FUNNIER AND BETTER THAN EXPECTED
  by Robin Simmons (Palm Springs area, CA United States)
In the mode of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S FAMILY VACATION is not a negative thing. This is an energetic and often quite funny family film. The theater we saw it in (Palm Desert, California) was nearly full with a cross section of seniors to kids. People laughed together and often.

The movie is fast paced with great outdoor cinematography. The plot has some twists and surprises and a real treat is Jeff Daniels and Kristen Chenoweth as parents of a permanent RV living (Christian?) family that are not treated as buffoons or easy targets for satire.

And that's the other thing that I liked about this light-hearted comedy; i.e., it has a moral center. Without being preachy in any way, the right things happen as all the loose ends are tied up in an unexpected (to me, anyway) and satisfying ending.

It's nice to see Robin Wiliams in a family film comedy again.

Jaded newspaper and TV reviewers weren't all that enthusiastic about this film, but audiences sure are. It was the top box office new movie the week it opened.

Better than expected and recommended.

4/5 As An RVer I'm A Little Biased
  by D. Dorsey (The South, USA)
I really thought this movie was hilarious.

The movie is about an executive that has to cancel his family vacation to Hawaii to make a sales presentation in Colorado. He gets the idea to make it into a road trip for the whole unwilling family... RV style. The mishaps and RV experiences are hilarious. Robins Williams was great (and I usually don't care for him much).

Its mostly about family bonding and its fun for the whole family but if you're an RVer or have even done some camping, you'll get an extra kick out of it.



5/5 A good family movie, an interesting twist on how to revive the family
  by Wiseguy 945 (Omaha, NE)
I must say I didn't think much of this movie when I first saw the previews in theaters, and so I let it slide to DVD before renting it. And I was suprised. It's not just a stolen script from the famous "Vacation" movie with chevy chase, who was a father that acknowledged their family problems and tried to fix them by going of vacation. This revolves around the theme of a workaholic father, the "perfect" stay at home wife, and their two spoiled kids, in which the father who is actually using this RV expedition as a selfish work tool, feeding the poor system. And what a better setting for a comedy than the roads of america in a huge rolling tin can, or turdmobile, whichever you prefer. Robin Williams was the perfect choice for the Father roll and did a masterful job at portraing it. And in the end, the family finds out what it really means to be a family, and what greatness it can actually be. A real delight to watch, and a suprise. So again, another case of not judging by the first short preview.