When city slickers head to the country, they are going to find things that they could never imagine in their lives, that little unbelievable element of the world called mother nature. Two not so closely related families end up sharing a cabin in the woods where stories of blood craving bears give nightmares and the raccoon's get their own subtitles while dining on lobster tales and raw hot dogs, which according to the obnoxious Dan Ackroyd are made of disgusting animal body parts. If that isn't scary enough, then try the two Curly Sue lookalike daughters of Ackroyd and Annette Benning who have the personalities of those disgusting animal body parts.
It's actually John Candy and Stefanie Faracy and their two sons who went off on the family vacation, not expecting their entitled relatives to show up unannounced. Obviously, there's a major conflict between the two men to outdo each other, a man to man rivalry that gives the two comic geniuses a lot to play off of. It's Saturday Night Live meets SCTV, and it's obvious as to why so many legends came out of their earlier years.
While there's a conflict, there's not much of a plot, so it is up to the laugh quotient which there is plenty of. If it's not the issues with wildlife (including a rather bad error in judgment when visiting a bear viewing park) , it's water sports, the photo opportunity with a dead man, and basically the country bumpkin's hidden laughter at the city slicker's expense. I really didn't care about Candy's son and the bored country girl he meets; I found that aspect served no purpose other than to appeal to teen audiences. Robert Prosky, as the campsite manager, gets a few funny moments, especially the one concerning the old man in his hundreds that Candy demands that his family pays homage to.
The final with the bear breaking in is scary, coming after a ridiculous plot development involving the disappearance of the two girls in a huge storm. A twist might upset some animal rights activists, but it does give proof to some people's curiosity if other mammals have other body parts that look like humans. So just really an innocuous entertaining comedy where nature proves that it's stronger than man and a lesson not to take country folk for granted, but remember that they are the ones who know how to persevere when things get tough. And if that moral isn't enough, the fact that the raccoon's are laughing at watching us clean up their mess is enough for me as well.
It's actually John Candy and Stefanie Faracy and their two sons who went off on the family vacation, not expecting their entitled relatives to show up unannounced. Obviously, there's a major conflict between the two men to outdo each other, a man to man rivalry that gives the two comic geniuses a lot to play off of. It's Saturday Night Live meets SCTV, and it's obvious as to why so many legends came out of their earlier years.
While there's a conflict, there's not much of a plot, so it is up to the laugh quotient which there is plenty of. If it's not the issues with wildlife (including a rather bad error in judgment when visiting a bear viewing park) , it's water sports, the photo opportunity with a dead man, and basically the country bumpkin's hidden laughter at the city slicker's expense. I really didn't care about Candy's son and the bored country girl he meets; I found that aspect served no purpose other than to appeal to teen audiences. Robert Prosky, as the campsite manager, gets a few funny moments, especially the one concerning the old man in his hundreds that Candy demands that his family pays homage to.
The final with the bear breaking in is scary, coming after a ridiculous plot development involving the disappearance of the two girls in a huge storm. A twist might upset some animal rights activists, but it does give proof to some people's curiosity if other mammals have other body parts that look like humans. So just really an innocuous entertaining comedy where nature proves that it's stronger than man and a lesson not to take country folk for granted, but remember that they are the ones who know how to persevere when things get tough. And if that moral isn't enough, the fact that the raccoon's are laughing at watching us clean up their mess is enough for me as well.