Z/Web

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

The promos for this film made it seem like just another comedy about idiots: idiotic dad shows up with a giant RV to take the family on a trip where everything goes wrong. But while there’s an annoying touch of that in a scene or two, the film is actually pretty tame overall, and it has a good-though-predictable storyline: dad has to work instead of taking the family to Hawaii so he rents an RV and drives to Colorado for his critical meeting, not telling them what he’s really doing. I actually really liked the movie: it’s harmless fun, has some wacky characters, and a bit of heart. Once again promotion distorts a good film.

This was actually better than I expected, but my expectations weren’t that high. It’s a decent movie, enjoyably harmless, about a dysfunctional family going a disasterous road trip. It’s somewhat predictable and the payoff at the ending isn’t quite worth the wait, but it is fun, and there are some excellent moments. Pretty good.