Kino Lorber
Movies with the involvement of John Hughes in some way, shape or form were a staple of the 1980s, many of which have retained their status as pop culture staples, just as the stars of these films either had their careers launched by them or have their characters and performances in Hughes’ features remembered as career highlights.
In The Great Outdoors, John Candy and Dan Aykroyd lead the cast as two brothers-in-law reluctantly spending time together with one another and their families in a lakefront cabin in a resort town in Wisconsin.
There, the inherent perils of the titular location is rivaled only by the unappealing prospect of being forced to spend time with people you would rather not be reminded exist.
Perpetually at odds with one another, the two men each vie for being perceived as the ultimate family patriarch, and as is par for the course with many a feature led by the two comedy legends, a myriad of awkward and improbable hijinks ensue over the course of the film’s 91-minute runtime.
Poorly received at the time of its original release, the criticism of the film’s shortcomings remain valid to this day, as it simply leaves too much to be desired, resulting in a deeply lackluster effort, which is only emphasized by how engaging and iconic its two leading men were otherwise known to be at the time.
This is not to say that the film is entirely devoid of entertainment value, as it elicits the odd chuckle here and there, especially from the subtitled family of raccoons engaging in their nocturnal scavenging, but as a whole, the film is ultimately lacking in generating any sort of comedic momentum, as it mercilessly drags along in spite of its modest runtime.
This is predominantly thanks to it reading as an array of disjointed vignettes of comical situations rather than a cohesive narrative building to a sufficiently chaotic climax, with Candy and Dan Aykroyd’s character dynamic failing to become anything meaningfully entertaining, instead feeling like a tepid approximation of Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid’s dynamic in the National Lampoon film series.
As such, revisiting the film may be of interest for particularly staunch fans of the two leading men or those who cannot get enough of 1980s nostalgia regardless of the quality of the content, but for most viewers, there are simply too many better movies out there to make it worthwhile to spend your time on a film that leaves much too much to be desired in every aspect of comedy filmmaking.
Extras include multiple commentaries and trailer.
Verdict: 4 out of 10.
