Robin Williams returns to his goofy roots in Barry Sonnenfeld's RV. He plays a hapless family man who takes the brood on holiday in a really big camper van - cue the septic tank jokes. Not surprisingly this got a frosty reception from most critics although we called it "entertaining if predictable". Ultimately the question of whether it's funny or not depends on how you feel about the comedy stylings of RW.

Carry On Camping

Apparently it was during the shoot of Blood Simple that then-cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld decided to sport a ten-gallon hat and call himself a cowboy. A ten-minute profile allows cast and crew to tip their Stetsons to the wacky director - Williams calling him "The greatest Jewish cowboy that ever lived". And there's yet more gushing in another featurette, this time dedicated to JoJo Levesque (who plays Cassie). We're assured she's "a huge recording star" in the US.

Williams does more of his ‘shtick' in a gag reel - a sock puppet version of Jack Nicholson is admittedly quite funny. There's also an alternate scene (less funny) where he inhabits the guise of a Kung-Fu master and utters the bizarre maxim, "When the hamster comes off its wheel, it is wise for the gerbil to hide..."

Hitting The Road

Jeff Daniels is the poster boy for a caravanning subculture in RV Nation. He reveals that he loves nothing better than to hit the road in his Winnebago while Sonnenfeld and Williams highlight the comedy mileage you can get out of these obscenely large vehicles. "They just look funny," says the easily pleased director, while Williams talks about the problem of doing a three-point turn. "It has a wide turning radius," he says, "like a lot of the ladies in bicycle shorts at Disneyland."

Sonnenfeld tries, in futility, to liven up a dull commentary for the film by using a telestrator. This allows him to scribble lines on the screen to point out where he used green screen and digital effects to fill in the background. In fairness there's not much he can talk about since his approach was basically to point the camera and wait for someone to be funny. For instance of Will Arnett (who plays Todd) he explains, "You just put a big 21mm lens really close to his face and you get comedy without him having to do anything." So, in summation, poo jokes + big vans + Arnett's nasal hair = comedy. Who'd have thought it?

Capping off the extras menu are five storyboard-to-film comparisons and the inexplicable addition of Cheryl Hines warbling like Björk in a tin can in RV Reveries. Somebody make it stop...

EXTRA FEATURES