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Release Date: 1988-06-17
Post Views: 4
TMDB Rating: 6.5/10 from 648 votes on TMDB
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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.
Tagline:This is no holiday… this is war!
Release Date: 1988-06-17
Movie Revenue: $43455230
Movie Runtime: 91
Language: English
The Great Outdoors Box Office Collection: $24000000
The Great Outdoors was released on 17 June 1988. It is a Comedy film with a running time of 91 minutes. Produced in United States of America. You can find full details on The Great Outdoors, including cast, trailers and UK streaming availability, right here on Filmoria.
Filmoria's Take: Audience reaction has been solid without being universal. Now an established part of the catalogue rather than a new release. Fits naturally alongside the other Comedy titles on Filmoria.
The Great Outdoors isn't currently listed as available to stream, rent or buy in the UK. Check TMDB for the latest UK availability, powered by JustWatch.
Decent watch at best, probably won't watch again, but can recommend for those on a late-eighties nostalgia kick. Sometimes it is good to get in "The Way Back Machine" and see some of the movies that made people famous, and I liked Dan Aykroyd and John Candy. The duplicitous plot and character choices just didn't sit great with me. Having recently seen "Brother Nature", it is interesting to see a movie that could have inspired it. I think it would have been a lot better with John Candy as an overwhelmingly positive buzzkill and Aykroyd playing a family man. But Candy is sort of the family man of the late 1980s, and Aykroyd is the quintessential New York scumbag, and they do it well. I'd ultimately say it is worth the watch, but there are probably a dozen "back to nature" movies I could recommend in front of this one.
Review via The Movie Database (TMDB)
"The Great Outdoors" is only a moderately entertaining film, although it does feature the unforgettably spectacular sight of John Candy water skiing. The grizzly bear action also works well and there is always an enthusiastic energy about this film which every member of the cast effortlessly maintains, but in terms of John Hughes's output this entry is not one of his more memorable outings and some of it does feel like miscellaneous bottom drawer material that has so far gone unused until now. He has done a reasonable job of using such material - if this indeed happens to be the case - as the basis for a mildly amusing film which is as watchable as it is because of Dan Aykroyd and John Candy. They are the ones who keep you watching even though you know everyone involved in front and behind the cameras has done so much better work elsewhere.
Review via The Movie Database (TMDB)
If you took a Vacation film and filled in the blanks with different character names and places, you'd have a movie like this. It has all of the same ingredients but the emotional feeling behind them is lost. John Candy could play the Griswold part, Dan Ankryd the Cousine Eddie part, a different girl plays Rusty's girlfriend he meets in Europe, and so forth. I don't even recognize who plays the part of John Candy's screen wife for this outdoor adventure, but she really looks terrible. The chance romantic meeting of their son, Buck, looks forced into the story.
Review via The Movie Database (TMDB)
