Summer Rental (1985)

“Can you tread water with that hook?” – Jack Chester

Number of Times Seen – 1 (11 Dec 2018)

Brief Synopsis – A family’s summer vacation turns sour when everything goes wrong that can go wrong.

My Take on it – As a fan of John Candy and his movies, I wanted to see what this film was all about despite the fact that I didn’t have very high expectations for the film on a whole.

Candy is actually fine in the main role and delivers what can be expected from him.

The problem here is that the story itself is pretty weak and lacks so much more that would have made it so much more interesting.

The main antagonist of the film is played by Richard Crenna and the rivalry that he and Candy have is actually quite silly and they end up taking it places that they really shouldn’t have gone because it feels as if they are constantly beating a dead horse.

There are some funny scenes in the film (like the use of the house by strangers and also the mishap between which house they actually rented), but overall, this probably would have been much more enjoyable as a series of comedy sketches instead of a full length film because things feel like they move along too slowly and the amount of time between the funny scenes is often too long.

Bottom Line – Candy is fine here, but the story itself lacks something that would help keep the things so much more interesting.  The rivalry between Candy and Crenna is pretty silly and it’s taken places that they shouldn’t have gone.  Some of the hilarity of the film would work much better as a series of skits but overall, this is a very slow moving and unfunny film.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Kerri Green, who played Jennifer Chester, dubbed Aubrey Jene, who portrayed Laurie Chester. As such, both sister characters were voiced by the same actress. As such, it is kind of ironic that Jennifer tells her little sister to “Stop saying everything I say!”. One must wonder whether or not that dialogue was included as an inside joke. (From IMDB)

Rating – Razzie Worthy (3/10)

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