RV (film)

Plot

Bob Munro (Robin Williams), a successful California beverage company executive, is struggling with a dysfunctional family, with his materialistic wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines), his sharp-tongued teenage daughter Cassie (Joanna "JoJo" Levesque), and his son Carl (Josh Hutcherson), who is an adolescent weightlifter and likes Hip hop. At a company picnic, Bob is embarrassed in front of his self-absorbed boss Todd (Will Arnett) by Cassie's militant friend Gretchen, who hurls a tub of slime all over Todd for putting unhealthy drinks in schools. Looking forward to a big family vacation in Hawaii, their trip is cancelled when Todd, out of spite, tells Bob that he has to attend a meeting with the Alpine Soda company in Boulder, Colorado instead, or else he will be fired. Concealing the real reason for going there, he rents a garish RV from the dodgy dealer Irv (Barry Sonnenfeld) and tells his family they are traveling to the Rockies.

On their trip, Bob and his family encounter many mishaps. These include him damaging the parking brake, crashing into and running over objects such as shopping carts, flushing out a trio of raccoons with a stink bomb, and fixing a clogged sewage system. Along the way, they meet another traveling family, the Gornickes, consisting of Travis (Jeff Daniels), Mary Jo (Kristin Chenoweth), and their children, Earl (Hunter Parrish), Billy (Alex Ferris), and Moon (Chloe Sonnenfeld). Earl develops a romantic interest in Cassie and Carl starts to like Moon, but thinking that the Gornickes are too strange for them, Bob and Jamie decide to ditch them; when the Gornickes reappear at another stop, the Munros believe they are stalking them.

Meanwhile, to disguise his business trip, Bob tries to e-mail a proposal outline from his laptop, working in restrooms; eventually, a hitchhiker steals it, leaving him with only a BlackBerry PDA, which he does manage to use to compose and wirelessly send his proposal to his company. The Gornickes then recover his stolen laptop after picking up the same hitchhiker, and pursue to return it to him.

Eventually the Munros begin to enjoy their vacation. In order to attend the merger meeting, however, Bob distracts his family by faking illness and sends them on a hike. The meeting with Alpine Soda is a success, but Bob is invited to talk to the whole company again the next day. Rushing back to his family in the RV, he takes a treacherous 4 wheel drive trail, and gets the huge vehicle stuck atop a jutting boulder in the middle of it. He eventually manages to dislodge it from there by getting on the front and rocking it until it eventually wobbles and tips forward enough to slide down from atop the boulder. Now riding on the front while it is traveling at a frenzied pace, he barely manages to return to his family in time, succeeding in fooling them, but while he is attempting a similar ruse the next day, the parking brake fails again and the RV rolls into a lake. He lets it slip about the real intentions of the vacation, and his family is upset that he would use them like that. Still needing to get to the meeting, he retrieves one of his family's bicycles from the lake and pedals off. Jamie, Cassie, and Carl are then picked up by the Gornickes, and soon realize how well they get along, when Bob appears again, climbing atop the moving bus. Bob apologizes to his family, and they, in turn, apologize to him for their selfishness and reveal that they love him more than the lifestyle his job gives them. Bob is just about to blow off the meeting when it turns out that he's right outside the headquarters.

At the second meeting, Bob starts his speech and it goes well, but then he has an epiphany and so he recommends against the merger, realizing that Todd's selfishness would destroy a great independent company. Carl gets angry at Todd and flips him over his shoulder, onto the ground. Bob is then fired, but he quits anyway, and soon retrieves the sodden-but-still-operable RV from the lake. At the end, he is offered a job by the owners of Alpine Soda, who want to go national independently. In addition, at the same time, the parking brake fails again, causing the RV to roll backwards flattening both the police car and that of the owners of Alpine Soda. As the credits roll, the two families are shown dancing to and singing the song, "Route 66" (RV Style).

Cast

Production

The film began principal photography in the Vancouver area and southern Alberta on May 25, 2005 and finished filming in December 2005.

Soundtrack

The score was written by James Newton Howard and featured several members of the Lyle Lovett Band: Matt Rollings (keyboards), Russ Kunkel (drums), Ray Herndon (guitar), Viktor Krauss (bass), and Buck Reid (pedal steel). Alvin Chea, vocalist from Take 6, provided solo vocals. Additional music was provided by Stuart Michael Thomas and Blake Neely. Several songs were featured prominently in the film including: "GTO", "Route 66", "Cherry Bomb", and "Stand By Your Man".

Release

The film was theatrically released in North America on April 28, 2006 by Columbia Pictures and was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on August 15, 2006 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Reception

RV received generally negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 23% based on 122 reviews with an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "An unoriginal and only occasionally funny family road-trip movie, RV is a mediocre effort that not even the charisma of Robin Williams can save." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 33 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Justin Chang of Variety said "RV works up an ingratiating sweetness that partially compensates for its blunt predictability and meager laughs." Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, said "There is nothing I much disliked but little to really recommend."

RV won a Golden Raspberry Award for a special category called "Worst Excuse for Family Entertainment", while Kristin Chenoweth was nominated for Worst Supporting Actress. RV grossed $71.7 million in America and $15.8 million in other territories for a total gross of $87.5 million, against its $50 million budget. In its opening weekend, the film finished number one at the box office with $16.4 million.