The Great Outdoors (1988)
It's vacation time for outdoorsy Chicago man Chet Ripley, along with his wife, Connie, and their two kids, Buck and Ben. But a serene weekend of fishing at a Wisconsin lakeside cabin gets crashed by Connie's obnoxious brother-in-law, Roman Craig, his wife, Kate, and the couple's two daughters. As the excursion wears on, the Ripleys find themselves at odds with the stuffy Craig family.
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I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.