The family road trip you never wanted to take...

Rating: 3/10 (17 October 2009)

Worst movie I've seen in a long time. The characters were completely unsympathetic and devoid of any personality. Within the first five seconds of seeing the wife, I wanted to punch her in the face. Then we had the over-sexed grandpa, and that kid doing his best to impersonate a brooding teen.
This is like a road trip you were forced to take with your family as a kid. It's long, boring, somewhat depressing, and very annoying. Every thing that can go wrong does go wrong. And although it's advertised as a comedy, very little humour is derived from the situations the family finds itself in along the way. I did not laugh once. In the rare parts when it tries (too hard) to be funny, the jokes are same-old garden variety that you've seen done better in a thousand other movies. The characters make a lot of stupid mistakes too, mostly because they can't seem to see easier solutions to their problems. We need to get to California for three o clock. Should we send someone ahead with the kid so they can register in the pageant on time, or do we smuggle grandpa's body out of a hospital?
The only person in the film who's eyes I didn't want to throw acid into was the pageant registrar who took five minutes out of his time to sign up a late contestant. Seriously, only likable character.
I'm embarrassed for Steve Carrol.
Also, where'd they get these actors? Some obscure community theater in rural Saskatchewan?
Okay, I get that this was the film debut of a directing husband and wife. I sincerely hope they're making better movies now.
Maybe it's just me though. This movie is so damn popular with everyone and I can;'t figure it out. I feel like I'm on an alien planet.