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A toothless comedy about culture clashes in 1980s America with a script by John Hughes. Not the worst way to spend 90 minutes, but not one of the better uses of its talented cast or beloved writer’s skills. The Great Outdoors plays more like the set-up of a sitcom stretched out to feature length, lots of bits works, and just as many land with a thud.
But, hey, we get to watch John Candy and Dan Aykroyd plays off of each other, and that’s worth something. Candy plays the poorer patriarch taking his family out into the woods for a nice quiet vacation, while Aykroyd is the yuppie brother-in-law bringing his family along to crash that vacation. The set-up is about all there is to the movie, with culture clashing over and over again and a few expected moments in which these city dwellers freak out about nature. It’s mildly amusing, but that’s about it.
