The Great Outdoors ** (1988, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Stephanie Faracy, Annette Bening) – Classic Movie Review 8179

‘The wildlife is wild, but his brother-in-law is unbearable.’ Director Howard Deutch’s amiable but slack 1988 comedy The Great Outdoors at least starts with the benefit of a strong, game star cast of Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Stephanie Faracy and Annette Bening.

The set up is okay. Chet and Connie Ripley (Candy, Faracy) and their family’s summer holiday is wrecked by having to share a Wisconsin woods log cabin with their in-laws, led by Roman and Kate Craig (Aykroyd, Bening). But the film is weakly written on an off-day by John Hughes, and the casting would have been better the other way round with Candy in his well-practised boorish role and Aykroyd in the boring part.

Hughes did better for Candy with Uncle Buck (1989) and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. (1987).

Dan Aykroyd stars in The Great Outdoors (1988).

Also in the cast are Chris Young as Buck Ripley, Ian Michael Giatti as Ben Ripley, Hilary Gordon as Cara Craig, Rebecca Gordon as Mara Craig, Lucy Deakins, Lewis Arquette and Robert Prosky.

It was released in the US on 17 June 1988. Despite its okay US performance, costing $24,000,000 and grossing $41,455,230, it had a video premiere a year late in the UK, on 26 June 1989.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8179

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