Family Camp
for some action and thematic elements.
Reviewed by: David Cook
CONTRIBUTOR
| Moral Rating: | Excellent! |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
|
| Primary Audience: | Family Adults Preteens Kids |
| Genre: | Family Comedy |
| Length: | 1 hr. 51 min. |
| Year of Release: | 2022 |
| USA Release: |
May 13, 2022 (854 theaters) DVD: June 28, 2022 |
Polar-opposite families forced to be together
Feeling that your family is falling apart
Solving family problems
Solving marriage problems
How to love your wife
How to love your husband
For a follower of Christ, what is LOVE—a feeling, an emotion, or an action?
What is a TRUE BIBLICAL CHRISTIAN?
What does the Bible say about pride and HUMILITY?
What is meekness? and why is it a trait of the truly wise?
What is biblical WISDOM?
What advice do you have for new or growing Christians? Answer
What is FAITH and why is it important? Answer
What is faithfulness?
What is TRUTH? Answer
Learning how to forgive
What is SIN? Answer
| Featuring |
Tommy Woodard … Tommy Ackerman Eddie James … Eddie Sanders Leigh-Allyn Baker … Grace Ackerman Gigi Orsillo … Victoria Sanders Cece Kelly … Hannah Ackerman Jacob M Wade … Henry Ackerman Elias Kemuel … Ed Jr. Sanders Keslee Blalock … Barb Sanders Mark Christopher Lawrence … Pastor Dave Robert Amaya … Joel See all » |
| Director |
Brian Cates |
| Producer |
Provident Films Reserve Entertainment See all » |
| Distributor |
“I’m not junk. God doesn’t make junk,” one character explains in a touching moment of “Family Camp.”
The Skit Guys are a duo of content creators that have been entertaining Christian audiences and churchgoers since the infancy of YouTube. Their brand of goofy-yet-sweet sketches are a perfect blend of entertainment and poignancy. With “Family Camp,” they take that formula and make the leap to the big screen with their first feature film.
Tommy (Tommy Woodard—“The Skit Guys”) is a successful businessman, but his wife Grace (Leigh-Allyn Baker—“Will and Grace,” “Good-Luck Charlie”) yearns for more. She desperately wants him to spend some quality time with her and the kids. How can that happen?
Family church camp, of course.
Upon arrival at Camp Katokwah, they are forced to share a cabin (actually a yurt) with a seemingly perfect family led by patriarch Eddie (Eddie James—“The Skit Guys”). Now, Tommy’s family feels that they must put on their “perfect” façade as they participate in various camp activities and competitions. However, these disguises can’t last forever, and the true identities of these families will eventually be revealed.
It’s amazing to me that a goofy, cheesy, family movie can be profound; but “Family Camp” does it. The film starts at a breakneck pace with Disney-Channel-style rapid dialog and punchlines. The editing is quick, the jokes are nutty, and the premise is simple. It’s reminiscent of 80’s comedies like “Caddyshack” and “Vacation.” Even with its familiar tropes, the jokes are subverted with fresh, comedic takes. As the story develops, that speedy pace subtly slows down and restrains itself to take time to focus on each character and the challenges they must face. These Christians aren’t perfect. They are far from it. Their struggles are our struggles. Their hopes are our hopes.
“I’ve been forgiven a lot, so I need to be able to forgive,” one character realizes. This thought comes directly from Ephesians 4:32:
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
In God’s sight, it is totally unacceptable for a Christian to refuse to forgive others. Remember the parable of the master who forgave a guilty man who owed him an amount so enormous that he could never hope to pay it back? The master completely forgave him. But, afterward, that forgiven man roughly grabbed another who owed him a very small amount, and allowed him no time to repay—showed him no mercy—and threw him into prison. When the master heard of this, he was FURIOUS and his punishment was swift.
In that parable, the Master represents God. And the forgiven man represents you—if you have similarly FAILED to forgive another, when Christ’s blood has paid your unpayable debt to God, and He has forgiven you for everything you have ever done wrong—and for your continuing failures to do everything that is truly right and good.
Therefore, we have a responsibility to be humble, forgiving, loving servants of God.
“In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship…can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts…” —Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
The Skit Guys know their audience, and they are specifically appealing to their Christian fans with “Family Camp.” They poke fun at various parts of Christian culture, but they also tackle serious issues within the Christian community—marital struggles, recognition of personal sin, current-dayidolatry, and failing to trust in God and His Plan for our lives.
Whether you are a Christian or not, the values of this film are universal. When it removes the false veil that some Christians wear on Sunday mornings, vulnerability takes center stage. It honestly shows how screwed up some of us Christians are and how desperately they are trying to get through the day. Sometimes Christians feel like junk, but again, “God doesn’t make junk,” and I’m thankful this movie reminds us of that truth.
- Violence: Mild (slapstick)
- Vulgar/Crude language: Minor
- Sex: Minor
- Profane language: None
- Nudity: None
- Drugs/Alcohol: None
- Occult: None
See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.
PLEASE share your observations and insights to be posted here.
I wish I could see where all the people at Plugged In, Christian Answers, and Movieguide are all coming from with this one, and the Skit Guys do seem like earnest people. I don’t want to be hard on any of these people. But to me, this might just be one of the most boring films I have ever seen. I’ve seen films that are objectively worse, but at least with Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas or The Room, some of the decisions they make are so baffling and bizarre, you can’t help but be mesmerized the whole way through. With Family Camp, though, nothing is ever memorable or funny, making for an experience that was overall, pretty drab.
The story is about as baseline of a family or camp movie as you could get. You have the overworked dad who needs to connect with his family, the family itself is somewhat dysfunctional, there’s a rival family involved, and by the end, they all learn to get along together over a positive lesson. This is essentially just Cheaper by the Dozen 2 again, which already wasn’t a very good movie. But at least that one had Steve Martin and Eugene Levy, a couple genuinely funny actors, trying their best to elevate the material. I could forgive Family Camp’s plot being so simple if A. They put a unique twist on it or B. It was funny. Unfortunately, this was neither. There aren’t really any jokes or one-liners to be had here (if they are, they aren’t memorable enough to stick with you after the viewing).
It’s all pretty juvenile slapstick, which can work in some cases if you’re willing to go over the top with it, but they don’t, or at least not enough of the time for it to work. The basic source of this movie’s comedy is that the two main characters act funny, and so you’re supposed to find it funny. But they don’t have a strong or creative enough script to make the characters” appearances memorable nor do Tommy or Eddie have expressive enough faces or movements to induce the film with the energy it needs to get even a well-earned chuckle. If anything, this movie would’ve probably worked better if it took the “Airplane” route and infused the film with so much absurdity, but had Tommy and Eddie act entirely deadpan the whole time (that strategy did actually make me laugh in a couple of their YouTube sketches).
The movie also heads into bizarre territory where they try to ground this slapstick comedy with a surprisingly mature storyline between the two dads that the film wants you to take seriously. In something like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, this works because Neil and Del are built up as characters first and the comedy proceeds from their unpredictable interactions. With Family Camp, however, no one is given any time to built up as likable or endearing. Tommy and Eddie’s motivations are so petty and formulaic that you really don’t care what happens to them. you’re just waiting for whatever slapstick situation will happen next and pray it gets a laugh (it doesn’t). So when the movie switches to serious mode, it’s not only jarring, but also feels unearned. I get that the messages about God making everyone for purpose and being a godly, loving father is the heart of the story. But the film wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to be light-hearted, kid-friendly, and good-natured, but also grounded, profound, and inspiring. And it fails on both accounts. It doesn’t inspire because it spends too much time focusing on lame slapstick, and the slapstick doesn’t draw a laugh because it’s too grounded by the serious moments. The results are too uneven and canceled out that I can’t really recommend it for anyone. At 80 minutes, this might’ve been a 2 star movie. But at nearly 2 hours, this was just a slog.
Morally, there’s nothing the balk at here. There’s no profanity, sex, drugs, gore, anything from typical Hollywood, not even hints to it that you’d get in most children’s movies. Any violence is mild and comedic, and the film does try to leave viewers with a message about being a better, godly father. I wouldn’t dissuade anyone from seeing Family Camp on it’s moral quality, but I don’t think it’s profound enough to justify how poor it is as a movie. I’d rather watch a film with some moral problems that at least leaves a positive impact with a well-built up message than a clean movie that goes in one ear and out the other.
I don’t believe you need to be vulgar to create a funny movie, but you do need to understand how comedy works. Maybe it’s attempts at being over the top or Tommy and Eddie’s attempts at silly expressions will resonate with some viewers and get them to laugh. If that’s you, good for you. For me, there’s just no build-up, subversion, or pay-off. And after a while, it just gets kind of tedious. I wish the best for the Skit Guys in the future. I just hope they can make a better movie in the future, either leaning more heavy into the comedy aspect or the drama aspect.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Good / Moviemaking quality: 1