text: Wildman head counselor Tripper Harrison (Bill Murray in peak nutty form in his first lead role) presides over the various wacky hi-jinks at North Star summercamp. Tripper befriends sad and lonely misfit kid Rudy (a nice and affecting performance by Chris Makepeace). Director Ivan Reitman relates the amusingly off the wall comic vignettes at a ceaseless snappy pace and maintains an engagingly good-natured tone throughout. This film astutely nails the breezy'n'breezy essence of summer: making friends, first love, pulling pranks, competing in sports with a rival camp, campfire singalongs, and, of course, the inevitable scary urban legend about the escaped psycho killer with the hook hand. The sense of gleefully raucous fun this picture generates is positively infectious. Moreover, the humor is always goofy and occasionally gross, but never too nasty or mean-spirited. Best of all, there's a winning surplus of pure heart to go along with said humor (the warm relationship between Tripper and Rudy in particular is genuinely touching). The cast have an obvious ball playing their likable characters: Murray's gloriously gonzo and galvanizing presence keeps things constantly humming (his crazy PA announcements are absolutely sidesplitting), plus there are sound contributions from Harvey Atkin as hapless camp owner Morty, Kate Lynch as Tripper's sassy old flame Roxanne, Russ Banham as the amiable Crockett, Kristine DeBell as the sweet, foxy A.L., Sarah Torgov as the feisty Candace, Jack Blum as klutzy bespectacled nerd Spaz, Keith Knight as tubby slob Larry Finkelstein, Cindy Girling as the fetching Wendy, and Matt Craven as the hip Hardware. Donald Wilder's cinematography gives the movie an attractive sunny look and makes nifty use of wipes. Elmer Bernstein's lively and melodic score likewise does the trick. A real riot.