WHEN `RV' TAKES TO THE ROAD, KEEP YOUR DISTANCE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

There's a good joke to be made about ``RV'' being the perfect movie to discourage gas-guzzling during the current era of runaway fuel prices.

But I'm not paid to be funny, so I'm not going to waste any effort trying to make it. The people responsible for this movie, however, were paid to be funny. I think of them the way most of us do about oil company executives these days.

Basically a ``National Lampoon's Vacation'' episode with gallons of poo and sincere fake bonding where the laughs should be, ``RV'' stars Robin Williams as the dopey dad - and I never thought I'd live to write these words - the role Chevy Chase once played so masterfully.

Williams' Bob Munro, paradoxically, is a whiz of a corporate marketing schmoozologist, but he thinks his loving wife Jamie (``Curb Your Enthusiasm's'' Cheryl Hines) doesn't respect him and knows his sarcastic adolescents don't.

The man is a total doofus at home; no move he makes meets the approval of 15-year-old Cassie (Joanna ``JoJo'' Levesque) or 12-year-old Carl (Josh Hutcherson), nor should it.

Still, Bob can sell the toxic soft drinks his creepy boss makes like nobody's business. When an important merger meeting in Colorado coincides with the family's long-planned Hawaii vacation, Bob arbitrarily switches plans, rents a ghastly RV and cajoles his reluctant family into taking a road trip instead.

For reasons that remain incomprehensible even after they're explained near the end, Bob can't bring himself to tell Jamie that his job depends on showing up in the Rockies. This is a classic example of a movie that would not exist if two characters just had a simple, logical conversation.

The contrivance didn't yield much of a movie in any case.

The ugly motor home, which the family soon names The Big Rolling Turd, has bad parking brakes and a giant picture of director Barry Sonnenfeld painted on its passenger side. The former results in various incidents of runaway mayhem. The latter indicates that the guy who made such funny films as ``Get Shorty'' and the ``Men in Black'' pictures is now about as amusing as a truck salesman.

Along the highway, the Munros are dogged by an overly friendly clan of bus-dwelling yahoos, the Gornickes, headed by folksy Travis (Jeff Daniels) and his perky, overpercolated wife, Mary Jo (Kristin Chenoweth). Why the Munros keep trying to ditch 'em is another curious element of the film. There ain't nobody better than Travis to have around whenever Bob screws up something like draining the Turd's septic tank.

And screws it up big time. And at length. Fragrant, messy length. Getting some idea of the general tone of the ``humor'' in this piece yet?

Actually, there's a good deal of slapstick as well. And a percentage of that is fairly good fun. I laughed most at Bob's efforts to get the land boat off of a mountain peak. Your results may vary.

I guess the argument could be made that taking the whole family to ``RV'' at least is cheaper than buying a tank of gas these days.

Somehow, though, none of that seems right.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

RV - Two stars

(PG: language, toilet humor)

Starring: Robin Williams, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Kristin Chenoweth, Joanna ``JoJo'' Levesque, Josh Hutcherson.

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld.

Running time: 1 hr. 38 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Packaged family road trip comedy emphasizes sewage and hugs over laughs.