by SARAH ROWLAND

RV is a comedy that relies a lot on its props department for fabricated human feces and it doesn’t even do that right—green slime a turd does not make. It’s also a family film that gets its kicks from being overly hard on working dads or at least one working dad in particular.

Meet Bob Munro (Robin Williams). He’s an L.A.-based corporate stooge who has to cancel his family’s Hawaiian vacation for a last-minute, mandatory business trip to Colorado. Too afraid to say no to his boss and (for some reason) too scared to tell his family the truth, Bob hatches a plan that involves renting a motor home and driving it to his Alpine presentation. Naturally this doesn’t go over well.

Eventually though, his gangstah-wannabe son (Josh Hutcherson), spoiled brat daughter (Joanna Levesque) and unsympathetic better half (Cheryl Hines) agree to come along, but that’s only so they can make their bread-winning dad miserable. Cross-armed and scowl-faced, the three of them stand on the sidelines cracking one nasty sarcastic remark after another as the family punching bag does the driving, cooking, cleaning and emptying of the camper’s latrine. (Williams, proving how washed up he is as a comedic actor, stretches the latter scene to a laborious 20 minutes).

This is where Jeff Daniels comes in to debase himself as an actor by playing the head of a trailer trash clan from hell. He helps Bob wipe the Porta-potty shit off his face and then proceeds to stalk the Munros.

You’d think that facing a common enemy would bring them closer together, but no, every five minutes it’s more of, “To think we could have been surfing right now—way to go Dad.” The fact that Bob works a soul-destroying job so they can afford their iPods, cells and laptops doesn’t seem to phase this miserable bunch of ingrates. That’s not to say they don’t have their lightbulb moment 10 minutes before credits roll, but until then viewers are forced to endure an hour and a half of the most unlikable ensemble cast bitch their way across state lines. Dads, consider yourselves warned, and Daniels, get a new agent.

RV opens Friday, April 28

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