Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip Review: Saved by a Fun, Charming Cast

Remember Alexander? Or more specifically, the kid who is prone to a series of bad lucks? Well, he’s back but not the same kid you have seen him in — here we go — Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, a little over a decade ago. That same kid in question was Ed Oxenbould, and since he’s already turned 23, it doesn’t make sense for him to appear in a sequel.

Instead of replacing him with another white kid and adapt one of the three other Judith Viorst’s Alexander children’s book series (Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday, Alexander, Who Is Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move or Alexander, Who’s Trying His Best to Be the Best Boy Ever), the new movie is rather a standalone feature that bears no connection with its predecessor.

Titled Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip, the movie even changes the kid and his family into Latinos. In other words, this is a different family, but the core of the storyline remains the same: bad luck stays. So, the movie follows Alexander (Thom Nemer), who has a bad feeling about her travel writer-mother (Eva Longoria’s Val), decides to take the opportunity for the family to go on a family road trip to Mexico. The expenses are all covered, including the arrival of a big, state-of-the-art RV called Pathwinder XR.

Except for Alexander, who remains sceptical about the trip, the rest of the family from his chef-father Frank (Jesse Garcia) to his older sister Mia (Paulina Chávez) and his grandma Lidia (Rose Portillo) are all on board while his grandfather, Gil (Cheech Marin) is watching over their family dog at home. Alexander’s bad feeling has something to do with a devil monkey statue that he found somewhere in the attic, and according to his grandfather, it’s cursed.

Marvin Lemus, the creator behind TV’s Gentefied, directed Matt Lopez’s formulaic screenplay that you often see in a comedy related to a road trip. It’s all clichéd stuff here with the expected moments of accidents, bad detours and unlikely encounters. The latter is especially true with the sudden appearance of a skunk lurking inside the RV and next thing you know, it’s a big and silly excuse for the smelliest fart joke.

Like the 2014 predecessor, the new one is aimed squarely at younger kids and families to just sit back and enjoy the show. The comedy is largely a hit-or-miss affair, but thankfully, it doesn’t swerve sharply over the painfully unfunny territory like the one in the Ed Helms and Christina Applegate-starred Vacation reboot.

I admit Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip can be annoying at times, especially the grating way of Thom Nemer acting neurotic. But he still manages to bring enough playful charm to his role of a trouble-prone Alexander. Frankly, I have zero expectations upon watching this movie, but it somehow surprises me with Lemus’s reasonably assured direction, and it helps that the cast here is having fun and committed to their roles.

Eva Longoria and Jesse Garcia share good chemistry while Paulina Chávez equally shines in her supporting turn as Mia. The story splits up at one point, where Gil finds out something is wrong and decides to hop on his motorcycle to locate their whereabouts. This leads to a surprisingly wonderful subplot revolving around his estranged love-hate relationship with the disgruntled Lidia, as Marin and Portillo nearly steal the show even for just a few scenes together.

The movie is also briskly paced at just 94 minutes, while Lemus doesn’t get preachy on the obligatory moral lessons about family values, embracing both good and bad days, and living life to the fullest.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip is currently streaming on Disney+.