The Great Outdoors Poster

The Great Outdoors (1988)

PG 06/17/1988 Comedy 1h 31m
64%
User
Score
6.6/10
40%
24/100

The wildlife is wild, but his brother-in-law in unbearable.

Overview

It's vacation time for outdoorsy Chicago man Chet Ripley, along with his wife, Connie, and their two kids, Buck and Ben. But a serene weekend of fishing at a Wisconsin lakeside cabin gets crashed by Connie's obnoxious brother-in-law, Roman Craig, his wife, Kate, and the couple's two daughters. As the excursion wears on, the Ripleys find themselves at odds with the stuffy Craig family.

John Hughes

Writer

Howard Deutch

Director

Top Billed Cast

Dan Aykroyd

Dan Aykroyd

Roman Craig

John Candy

John Candy

Chet Ripley

Stephanie Faracy

Stephanie Faracy

Connie Ripley

Annette Bening

Annette Bening

Kate Craig

Chris Young

Chris Young

Buck Ripley

Lucy Deakins

Lucy Deakins

Cammie

Robert Prosky

Robert Prosky

Wally

Ian Giatti

Ian Giatti

Ben Ripley

Hilary Gordon

Hilary Gordon

Cara Craig

Full Cast & Crew →

Media

The Great Outdoors - Trailer

The Great Outdoors - Trailer

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Poster
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Reviews

A review by Kamurai

Written on February 24, 2021

Decent watch at best, probably won't watch again, but can recommend for those on a late-eighties nostalgia kick.

Sometimes it is good to get in "The Way Back Machine" and see some of the movies that made people famous, and I liked Dan Aykroyd and John Candy.

The duplicitous plot and character choices just didn't sit great with me. Having recently seen "Brother Nature", it is interesting to see a movie that could have inspired it. I think it would have been a lot better with John Candy as an overwhelmingly positive buzzkill and Aykroyd playing a family man. But Candy is sort of the family man of the late 1980s, and Aykroyd is the quintessential New York scumbag, and they do it well.

I'd ultimately say it is worth the watch, but there are probably a dozen "back to nature" movies ...

Read the full review on TMDb →

A review by kevin2019

Written on August 2, 2024

"The Great Outdoors" is only a moderately entertaining film, although it does feature the unforgettably spectacular sight of John Candy water skiing. The grizzly bear action also works well and there is always an enthusiastic energy about this film which every member of the cast effortlessly maintains, but in terms of John Hughes's output this entry is not one of his more memorable outings and some of it does feel like miscellaneous bottom drawer material that has so far gone unused until now. He has done a reasonable job of using such material - if this indeed happens to be the case - as the basis for a mildly amusing film which is as watchable as it is because of Dan Aykroyd and John Candy. They are the ones who keep you watching even though you know everyone involved in front and behind...

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