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RV (film)

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RV
A green Recreational vehicle (RV) perched precariously on a mountain peak.
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBarry Sonnenfeld
Written byGeoff Rodkey
Produced byLucy Fisher
Douglas Wick
Starring
CinematographyFred Murphy
Edited byKevin Tent
Music byJames Newton Howard
Production
companies
Distributed bySony Pictures Releasing[1]
Release date
  • April 28, 2006 (2006-04-28)
Running time
99 minutes
Countries
LanguageEnglish
Budget$50 million[3]
Box office$87.5 million[2][3]

RV (also known as Runaway Vacation) is a 2006 road comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, produced by Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick, written by Geoff Rodkey. It stars Robin Williams in the lead role, Jeff Daniels, Cheryl Hines, Kristin Chenoweth, Joanna Levesque, and Josh Hutcherson. Bob Munro (Williams) 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 premiered at the Village Theater, Los Angeles on April 23, 2006. The North American theatrical release followed on April 28, 2006, and was released on UMD, DVD and Blu-ray Disc on August 15, 2006.

Plot

Bob Munro, a successful California beverage company executive, is struggling to reconnect with his dysfunctional family, which includes his materialistic wife, Jamie, his irritable and brash sixteen-year-old daughter, Cassie, and his mischievous twelve-year-old son, Carl, who is an aspiring weightlifter and likes hip hop. At a company picnic, Bob is embarrassed in front of his self-absorbed boss, Todd Mallory, by Cassie's militant friend, Gretchen, who hurls a bottle of schmaltz all over Todd's face for putting unhealthy drinks in schools. This causes Jamie to faint. 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 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, his wife Mary Jo, and their children, Earl, Moon, and Billy. 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 mountain in the middle of the trail. He eventually manages to dislodge the RV from the mountain by getting on the front and rocking it until it eventually wobbles and tips forward enough to slide down from atop the mountain. 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. As support, the two families accompany Bob to the next meeting.

At the 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. Todd gets upset and tries to dismiss Bob's claims, but Cassie backs her father up by saying Todd was outsourcing the company. In retaliation, Todd fires Bob on the spot. Carl gets angry at Todd and flips him over his shoulder, onto the ground. Bob then tells Todd that he quits anyhow.

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 with Bob. In addition, at the same time, the parking brake fails once again, causing the RV to roll backwards, flattening both a police car and the Alpine Soda company owner's car.

Ultimately, the Munros and the Gornickes dance and sing "Route 66".

Cast

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 UMD, 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 in 3,639 theaters.[3]

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 24% based on 124 reviews and an average rating of 4.26/10. 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."[4] On Metacritic, it has a score of 33 out of 100 based on reviews from 28 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[6]

Justin Chang of Variety said "RV works up an ingratiating sweetness that partially compensates for its blunt predictability and meager laughs."[7] 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."[8]

Accolades

Award Category Nominee Result
Golden Raspberry Award Worst Excuse for Family Entertainment Won
Worst Supporting Actress Kristin Chenoweth Nominated
Young Artist Award Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor Josh Hutcherson Nominated

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "RV (2006)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved August 4, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d "R.V. (2006)". The Numbers. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c "RV (2006)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  4. ^ "RV (2006)". Rotten Tomatoes.
  5. ^ "RV Reviews". Metacritic.
  6. ^ "Cinemascore". Archived from the original on December 20, 2018.
  7. ^ Chang, Justin (May 1, 2006). "Family vehicle runs on gentle humor". Variety. 402 (11). Reed Business Information: 30.
  8. ^ Ebert, Roger (April 28, 2006). "RV review". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on June 2, 2013. Retrieved July 11, 2010.
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