RV (2006)

RV arrives in 2006 as a vehicle for Robin Williams to collide with stationary objects, and it performs that task with grim efficiency. Barry Sonnenfeld directs the Munro family across the country from Los Angeles to the Colorado Rockies, hauling a rented recreational vehicle, a workaholic father, a materialistic wife, and two teenagers who regard the whole enterprise as a personal insult. The screenplay by Geoff Rodkey treats the family as a collection of grievances that must be resolved by the final reel, which they are, in the manner of a sitcom that has run out of ideas but not of runtime.

The film's faintest gestures toward social consciousness lie in its corporate subplot. Bob's boss wants to swallow a small independent soda company, and Bob, after a change of heart, urges the Alpine Soda staff to keep their independence. It is an anti-corporate shrug, and the film promptly rewards him with a better job at the very company he declined to devour. The cast is white to a degree that borders on the geological, with JoJo providing the only notable exception in a supporting role. Carl's heavyweight ambitions register as a passing gag about a confident kid, and Cassie's sharp tongue is flavor, not argument. Nothing here advances a thesis about gender, race, or the body.

What remains is the gentle sermon that family outranks work, delivered by way of a toilet tank, raccoons, and a parking brake that fails with the reliability of a metronome. There is no environmental message in the Rockies, no historical revision, no interior life beyond the cubicle. It is a mild, tired comedy that wants only to sell tickets and return everyone to their lanes. It took the top spot at the domestic box office in its opening weekend, which says something about 2006 that we are not obligated to admire.