Summer Rental

The type of movie you can watch once a year and never get tired of. Typical John Candy film. Why did he always get mediocre scripts, save the John Hughes films? Was Hughes the only director who saw his talent? Either way, Candy rises above the material and makes the film fun to watch, but not necessarily a great film by any means. Great line regarding "The Smurfs."

3/5 stars -

John Ulmer

John Candy's wit and humor shines through as Jack Chester, the over worked air traffic controller who reluctantly takes a vacation to the beach with his family. The laughs keep coming as Jack and his family spend the summer at the beach with many mishaps occurring throughout the movie. The movie is about family and new friends pulling together, working side by side, believing in a dream and achieving an impossible goal. We've watched this movie many times, but we still laugh and feel good when the movie ends. The standing joke at our home, when we eat dinner out at a restaurant that passes off breaded fish as an expensive seafood item with a fancy name, is "Look - it's Scully's Catch of the day"! This movie is good, clean, family fun - entertainment for the entire family!

I thoroughly enjoy watching this movie every time they show it on Comedy Central or USA or TNT. This movie is classic John Candy all the way. Candy has scenes, no matter how many I times I watch, that make me laugh so hard I fall from my chair. Like when he kicks all the people out of his house wielding a crutch. Sure the story may be weak and a little corny with the whole boat race but it ranks up there among my favorites.

It has some other memorable moments including Rip Torn's character of Scully. My of my favorite parts is when he is teaching Jack (played by Candy) to sail. They are on the boat late at night and they are both drunk. Scully announces to jack, "Here's and little ditty me mother used to sing to me", at which point he breaks into "The Theme from Love Boat" and Jack joins in with him. And then there is the scenes between Scully and Angus when Scully refers to Angus as a "dumb Swede" even though he is a Scot.

It is a good rainy day rental.

This is one movie that shows how your summer vacation all goes wrong. John Candy plays Jack Chester, an over-worked man who decides to bring his family on vacation...and fails miserably. Instead of bringing them on vacation, he leads them strait to the gates of hell. Through several acts of trying to do good, Jack only makes things worse for himself. This movie was one of the best movies of John Candy's career. There was no over-acting and no artsy stuff. Just a good old fashioned comedy. Just how they should be. This is an old fashioned romp of a good belly laughing comedy. See it, if you are a Candy fan. See it anyway, even if you aren't. SUMMER RENTAL is one of the best comedies that John Candy ever did. 5/5.

For most of his career, John Candy played a bunch of rather silly roles that - while they were completely goofy - were great nevertheless. "Summer Rental" is one such role. Candy plays overworked air traffic controller Jack Chester, who takes his family on vacation in Florida. Naturally, it ends up being not as much of a vacation as they hoped. Finally, Jack and his family decide to take one last chance to restore their dignity.

I will admit that "Summer Rental" is pretty much a big excuse to be silly, but you gotta love it. This is John Candy doing what he does best. It's really too bad that he died; he really had a good track record.