RV (film)

RV (also known as Runaway Vacation) is a 2006 family road comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, produced by Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick, written by Geoff Rodkey, and starring Robin Williams, Cheryl Hines, Joanna Levesque, Josh Hutcherson, Kristin Chenoweth, and Jeff Daniels. Bob Munro and his dysfunctional family rent an RV for a road trip from Los Angeles to the Colorado Rockies, where they ultimately have to contend with a bizarre community of campers. It was released on April 28, 2006, in North America, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on August 15, 2006.
Plot.
Bob Munro (Robin Williams), a successful California beverage company executive, is struggling to reconnect with his dysfunctional family, which includes his materialistic wife, Jamie (Cheryl Hines), his brash teenage daughter, Cassie (Joanna Levesque), and his twelve-year-old 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 Mallory (Will Arnett), by Cassie's militant friend, Gretchen, who hurls a bottle of the company's drink all over Todd's face for putting unhealthy drinks in schools. Looking forward to a big family vacation in Hawaii, the Munros are forced to cancel it when Todd, out of spite, tells Bob that he has to attend a merger meeting with the Alpine Soda company in Boulder, Colorado instead, or else he will be fired. Concealing the real reason for not going to Hawaii, he rents a garish RV from the dodgy dealer Irv (Barry Sonnenfeld) and tells his family they are traveling to the Rockies, much to their dismay.
During their trip, the Munros have many mishaps, which include Bob damaging the parking brake, crashing into and running over various objects, flushing out a trio of raccoons with a stink bomb, and fixing a clogged sewage system. Along the way, the Munros meet another traveling family, the Gornickes, consisting of Travis (Jeff Daniels), his wife, Mary Jo (Kristin Chenoweth), and their children, Earl (Hunter Parrish), Moon (Chloe Sonnenfeld), and Billy (Alex Ferris). 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 they reappear at another stop, the Munros believe they are stalking them. Meanwhile, 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 the stolen laptop after picking up the same hitchhiker and persuading him to return it.
Eventually, the Munros begin to enjoy their trip. In order to attend the meeting, Bob distracts his family by faking illness and sends them on a hike. The meeting is a success, and 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 RV stuck atop a jutting boulder in the middle of the trail. He eventually manages to dislodge the RV from the boulder 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, Bob barely manages to return to his family in time. While Bob is attempting a similar ruse the next day, the parking brake fails again and the RV rolls into a lake. Bob comes clean about the true purpose of the trip, and his family becomes upset that he would treat them like that. Still needing to get to the meeting, he asks them for help, but they refuse. He retrieves one of their bicycles from the lake the RV rolled into and pedals off by himself. His family hitchhikes and is then picked up by the Gornickes, and soon realize how well they get along with each other.
Bob appears again, climbing atop the moving RV. He 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.
At another meeting, Bob starts his speech and it goes well, but then he has an epiphany and 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. Bob 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 once again, causing the RV to roll backwards, flattening both the police car and the Alpine Soda company owner's car. As the closing credits roll, the two families are shown dancing to and singing "Route 66" (RV Style).
Production.
The film began principal photography in the Vancouver area and southern Alberta on May 25, 2005 and finished filming the following August.
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.
The film grossed $71.7 million in America and $15.8 million in other territories for a total gross of $87.5 million, against a production budget of $50 million. In its opening weekend, it finished number one at the box office with $16.4 million.
Reception.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval percentage of 24% based on 123 reviews and an average rating of 4.30 out of 10. The critics 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 critic reviews, meaning "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", gave the film two out of four stars, saying "There is nothing I much disliked but little to really recommend."