I like funny family movies, I like family travel movies, the idea of going along on a motor home vacation at some level with a nice middle class family seemed like at least it would be pleasant if not raucously funny. I did not like this movie.
I blame the writing. The basic premise, that the family spends a day trying to get on the road to CA with their motor home and continually runs into time-sucking obstacles, totally pulled the idea of a 'family traveling comedy' movie right off the table. This is a depressing movie. DEPRESSING. The husband and wife have a very cold relationship, the daughter is downright annoying, and the son, well he's there and says what few lines he has but he really doesn't have anything going in the story beyond maybe saying "I want waffles and syrup too." I think I could have learned his part in less than five minutes. Of all the characters, he's just 'there'. Maybe that makes him the least annoying.
The bunch of obstacles the face are also annoying. The daughter doesn't want to go on vacation without taking her airhead boyfriend, the boyfriend's parents are quirky in a bad way and unlikeable, the aunt and grandmother are also someone you can't wait to get away from, the aunt's dog runs in front of the motorhome (what is the dog doing in the street??) and seems to have gotten killed, the family has to take the boyfriend's mother to her parole officer for a meeting, there is NOTHING funny. On top of this, the husband and wife spend half the movie unhappy (or sad) with each other. It's all tedious and annoying and after a while you feel this movie sucking out any happiness or joy you had earlier in the day. You find yourself wishing that the family would finally overcome all these delays and just get the motor home on the damned road so the movie can end, hopefully with a shot of them happily playing on the California beach where they were headed, but we didn't even get that.
This movie could have been written in two hours by someone with a hangover being held at gunpoint. Awful. I give it two stars instead of one because, they could have made it longer and that would have been even worse.
