I remember seeing this film and liking it as a kid. It was always the 'bald bear' film to me containing as it does a roguish grizzly who plays a central role in the proceedings. Otherwise the format of the film is very simplistic and features a couple of families who decide to go on a vacation together and end up warring.

The script was written by John Hughes and there's a slight sense that he's on autopilot here, with little meat to the storyline. For the most part THE GREAT OUTDOORS gets by on the goodwill generated from the central pairing of Dan Aykroyd and John Candy. Candy is a warm, lovable presence as ever, and Aykroyd gets some nicely acerbic moments. The supporting cast, which includes Annette Bening, is a bit more of a disappointment.

A lot of the jokes are merely average but they do pass the time quickly enough. Some of the moments, like the steak eating contest, are hilarious, and the climax is very good too. But in other respects THE GREAT OUTDOORS feels a bit like a poor cousin of the popular 'Vacation' film series featuring Chevy Chase.

Chet Ripley (John Candy) is excited for a great outdoors lakeside vacation with his wife Connie and two sons. Then Connie's sister Kate (Annette Bening) and her money obsessed husband Roman Craig (Dan Aykroyd) surprise them with their creepy twin girls. There are raccoons. There are bears. There's a bat. The oldest son Buck Ripley falls for local girl Cammie.

It's not fun. The annoying Roman sucks out all the joy without adding any laughs himself. The kids could have done better. The puppy love is cute but they aren't funny. John Candy is the only saving grace. He's so lovable that he almost salvages a bit joy. They try some big slapstick like waterskiing, the bat and the bear. There are not enough laughs that actually works. The chemistry for the characters were never there.

When city slickers head to the country, they are going to find things that they could never imagine in their lives, that little unbelievable element of the world called mother nature. Two not so closely related families end up sharing a cabin in the woods where stories of blood craving bears give nightmares and the raccoon's get their own subtitles while dining on lobster tales and raw hot dogs, which according to the obnoxious Dan Ackroyd are made of disgusting animal body parts. If that isn't scary enough, then try the two Curly Sue lookalike daughters of Ackroyd and Annette Benning who have the personalities of those disgusting animal body parts.

It's actually John Candy and Stefanie Faracy and their two sons who went off on the family vacation, not expecting their entitled relatives to show up unannounced. Obviously, there's a major conflict between the two men to outdo each other, a man to man rivalry that gives the two comic geniuses a lot to play off of. It's Saturday Night Live meets SCTV, and it's obvious as to why so many legends came out of their earlier years.

While there's a conflict, there's not much of a plot, so it is up to the laugh quotient which there is plenty of. If it's not the issues with wildlife (including a rather bad error in judgment when visiting a bear viewing park) , it's water sports, the photo opportunity with a dead man, and basically the country bumpkin's hidden laughter at the city slicker's expense. I really didn't care about Candy's son and the bored country girl he meets; I found that aspect served no purpose other than to appeal to teen audiences. Robert Prosky, as the campsite manager, gets a few funny moments, especially the one concerning the old man in his hundreds that Candy demands that his family pays homage to.

The final with the bear breaking in is scary, coming after a ridiculous plot development involving the disappearance of the two girls in a huge storm. A twist might upset some animal rights activists, but it does give proof to some people's curiosity if other mammals have other body parts that look like humans. So just really an innocuous entertaining comedy where nature proves that it's stronger than man and a lesson not to take country folk for granted, but remember that they are the ones who know how to persevere when things get tough. And if that moral isn't enough, the fact that the raccoon's are laughing at watching us clean up their mess is enough for me as well.