The Great Outdoors is yet another "disaster-vacation" comedy along similar lines to every other movie within its limited and predictable genre (e.g. National Lampoon's Vacation, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Carry On Camping, and Summer Rental). It doesn't play like a movie with a coherent plot; more like a series of comic sketches, linked together by the same characters and the same general premise of two bickering families attempting to endure a woodland holiday together.
Chet (Candy) takes his city-bred family up into the wilderness of the U.S-Canadian border region for a vacation in a log cabin. Uninvited, his over-bearing business-bigwig brother-in-law Roman (Akroyd) shows up. The mismatched pair, their bitchy wives, and their wacky kids proceed to have various misadventures involving speed boats, grizzly bears, horse riding excursions, raccoons, etc.
Candy and Akroyd are able to do this kind of thing on autopilot, and that's exactly the way they approach this film. Neither actor exerts himself, both seeming happy to aim for the easy laughs. The kids in the movie are generally annoying, ranging from Akroyd's eerie twin daughters (who look like they've just stepped out of The Shining) to Candy's eldest son who is desperate to find love in the woods. Some of the sequences are amusing, such as the scene where Candy foolishly attempts to feed the bears and ends up with two gigantic grizzlies sat upon the roof of his car, and the white-haired hillbilly who stutters maniacally about being struck by lightning over fifty times. More often, though, the sequences are predictable and fairly laughless. The Great Outdoors might entertain you if you're new to this kind of film, but if you've seen any of the others you'll find very little that is fresh here.
Chet (Candy) takes his city-bred family up into the wilderness of the U.S-Canadian border region for a vacation in a log cabin. Uninvited, his over-bearing business-bigwig brother-in-law Roman (Akroyd) shows up. The mismatched pair, their bitchy wives, and their wacky kids proceed to have various misadventures involving speed boats, grizzly bears, horse riding excursions, raccoons, etc.
Candy and Akroyd are able to do this kind of thing on autopilot, and that's exactly the way they approach this film. Neither actor exerts himself, both seeming happy to aim for the easy laughs. The kids in the movie are generally annoying, ranging from Akroyd's eerie twin daughters (who look like they've just stepped out of The Shining) to Candy's eldest son who is desperate to find love in the woods. Some of the sequences are amusing, such as the scene where Candy foolishly attempts to feed the bears and ends up with two gigantic grizzlies sat upon the roof of his car, and the white-haired hillbilly who stutters maniacally about being struck by lightning over fifty times. More often, though, the sequences are predictable and fairly laughless. The Great Outdoors might entertain you if you're new to this kind of film, but if you've seen any of the others you'll find very little that is fresh here.