Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The Great Outdoors (1988)

1/22/2021

The Great Outdoors (1988) - Deutch's low-brow comedy does the job

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A fun, magazine-styled poster for Howard Deutch's The Great Outdoors

A lovely family has headed off to vacation in a forest log cabin in Wisconsin, when their very different sister-in-law and her family turn up. - Will they be able to stand each other?

The Great Outdoors is written by John Hughes (Flubber (1997)) and directed by Howard Deutch (Pretty in Pink (1986)).

Stars John Candy (Stripes (1981)) and Dan Aykroyd (Unconditional Love (2002)) do what they can, while debuting Annette Bening (Being Julia (2004)) cackles her way through the film in the background. But there isn't much meat in this Hughes vegetable: There is a romance side story about two youths that's DOA. And then, well, what can one say about a film that's got eating a gigantic steak and killing an odd indoor bat as two of its significant plot points?

The Great Outdoors has good-looking bear scenes (with Bart the Bear (The Bear (1988))) and works as cozy entertainment, but it has lost lots of goodwill before its improbable ending binds a peculiar bow on the shenanigans. The Great Outdoors is no-one's best work.

Watch a clip from the film here

Cost: 24 mil. $

Box office: 43.4 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.80 times its cost)

[The Great Outdoors was released 17 June (USA) and runs 90 minutes. Shooting took place in Chicago, Illinois and in California from October - December 1987. The film opened #3, behind fellow new release Red Heat and holdover hit Big, to a 6.1 mil. $ in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#3) and grossed 41.5 mil. $ (95.6 % of the total gross). The film seems to have had been given a very limited international release, which also is reflected in its numbers. Deutch returned with Tales from the Crypt (1989-90)) and theatrically in Article 99 (1992). Candy returned with a voice performance in Hot to Trot (1988) and physically in Who's Harry Crumb? (1989); Aykroyd in Caddyshack II (1988). The Great Outdoors is rotten at 40 % with a 4.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

1/22/2021

The Great Outdoors (1988) - Deutch's low-brow comedy does the job

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