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'RV' : Robin Williams' return to comedy |
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Written by Knight Ridder
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Wednesday, 26 April 2006 |
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SHORT REVIEW
"RV"
3 stars [out of 4]
Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges
Rated: PG for crude humor, innuendo and language.
IN DEPTH
Robin Williams is staring silently out a hotel window on a rainy day. When asked if he’s going to jump, he turns, the eyes crinkle with a smile, and the hair-trigger mind leaps into action.
“Ah, it’s always difficult to go through a closed window, isn’t it?” he says. “You have to go for the running leap, and then ...”
And then it’s the window that gets you, and not the fall?
“Exactly.”
The immensely popular actor knows a thing or two about hitting windows. In “RV,” opening Friday, Williams does his most physical work in ages: He slams into windshields, scampers atop a speeding motor home, and pedals a bike out of a lake. As Bob Munro, an ad executive who tries to reconnect with his family — and save his job — while driving from L.A. to Colorado in a recreational vehicle, Williams steers the wild horseplay and goofy wordplay.
Joanna (JoJo) Levesque and Josh Hutcherson play his 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son; Cheryl Hines (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) takes on the role of his wife.
“RV” also is, amazingly, Williams’ first full-blown live-action comedy in almost a decade. The last time he was seen in this mode, in 1997’s “Flubber,” he was with a magical piece of green goo in a flying car. Since then, he has won a 1997 Best Supporting Actor Oscar (for “Good Will Hunting”), garnered attention for playing quiet psychos in “One Hour Photo” and “Insomnia” (both 2002), and appeared in dramas like “Jakob the Liar” and “House of D.”
Not all of those were well-received, but Williams, after hitting career highs with the’90s blockbusters “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “The Birdcage” and “Patch Adams,” couldn’t find any scripts that delivered the wacky package.
And so the comic, who had always tried to smash through the comedy window into drama, set his Juilliard-trained jaw for what became an extended run of unfunny guys.
by Joe Neumaier
New York Daily News, for Knight Ridder
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