Hot Tub Time Machine has the benefit of having the stupidest movie title I've ever heard. It pretty much screams out that this is going to be a low-brow sex comedy. It has Hot Tub right there in the title. I love hot tubs. Hot tubs mean all types of sordid shenanigans are about to take place. Maybe that's my biggest problem, HTTM simply isn't crazy enough. It certainly has all the right pieces to be wacky frat boy comedy ala Old School, but the water in this tub is tepid at best.
John Cusack does that thing he always does, playing the guy who never seems to reach his full potential as Adam. Adam and his best buds, Lou(Rob Corddry) and Nick(Craig Robinson) are at the age where life is pretty much all it's going to be. All they have left are their memories back when they were wild and crazy and the world seemed wide open to them. Lou has devolved into a suicidal drunk, and poor Nick went from an aspiring career as a musician to pulling crap out of dogs' butts. That's a bit a downgrade, homie. Adam, just recently divorced, lives with his sister's son, Jacob(Clark Duke), a kid in his early 20s who's idea of socializing involves a keyboard and mouse. Hey, I resemble that remark!
In an ill-advised attempt to recapture their former glory, the three friends and Jacob decide to escape back to the scene of some of their fondest memories, a ski resort known as Kodiak Valley, which sounds like one of those places John Cusack might've won the heart of some quirky hot chick in one of his 80s teen comedies. Now 20 years later it looks like the scene of a potential murder, or something out of a Hitchcock film. It's run down and creaky, falling apart at the seams, much like their lives. The bellboy(Crispin Glover) is a one-armed, and wastes no time showing his anger about it. Doesn't stop him from sticking that arm out to ask for a tip.
Their little excursion is starting to look like a disaster. No hot chicks, not enough money for prostitutes(budgeting, my friends! Come on!), and even the hot tub has a dead raccoon in it. Told you those things were germ factories. But thanks to some cheerful assistance from a mysterious repairman(Chevy Chase, playing the Doc Brown role), the hot tub is good as new. A little too good. A little too new. The guys dive in for a drunken romp, that I imagine is about as good as a drunken romp can be with four naked dudes who(supposedly) have no sexual interest in eachother. A strange, Russian drink is spilled into the tub's inner machinery, somehow transporting the guys back in time to 1986. The guys are reverted back to their old looks. High top fades and haircuts ripped straight from the Motley Crue catalogue.
Any concerns about warping the space-time continuum don't last long. Jacob's worried about not being born, especially when he runs into his mom, who's a bit of a superskank. Adam has a second chance to not break up with the girl of his dreams and hopefully not get stabbed in the eye with a fork. Lou wants to not get his ass kicked by the token ski bully, you know that blonde haired blue eyed douche who sets up camp in everyone of those 80s comedies. The guys see a chance to set their lives straight, but of course nothing quite goes as planned.
Hot Tub Time Machine is a lot like it's main characters. It's trying hard to recapture the glory of past comedies, but comes up way short. I basically grew up on 80s comedies, everything from Hot Dog: The Movie to Ski Patrol, and there are elements of all of these films in here. The biggest problem is that it's saddled by a convoluted story, which for a sophomoric comedy like this is instant death. This becomes more apparent when the guys finally break free of their bonds and stop worrying about the future. What should've been the perfect chance for raunchy, crude fun is bogged down in a tired old message about "growing up" and accepting life. >yawn< That's not what I signed up for.
It's a shame because there is a lot to like. There's nothing technically wrong here, and the cast is top rate. John Cusack, despite the fact that he always seems to be channeling his character from High Fidelity, is solid as usual. Rob Corddry, who has never been a favorite of mine when outside of The Daily Show, is laugh out loud hilarious, particularly in his zeal to find out how the bellboy loses his arm in the past(a running gag that always works). I could've used a better storyline for Craig Robinson, who's plot seems to be little more than an afterthought until the film's conclusion. And Clark Duke, who I've been amping up ever since Sex Drive and Kick-Ass, is actually kind of a drag. It's not his fault. He has the thankless role of being the one sole voice of reason, and is usually the guy who throws a wet blanket on the festivities.
What's more, what friggin' version of the 80s was this that they landed in? I lived through the 80s, and sir, you are no 80s! Merely throwing in some leg warmers and putting a picture of Alf on the screen isn't going to cut it. Believe me, the 80s were far worse and far cheesier than this movie makes it out to be.
HTTM is probably going to be a movie that most people will love, and frankly I'm sure after i've seen it a couple of times it'll start to grow on me. That's sortof the nature of movies like this. The cast is too likable, and it becomes tiresome jabbing a sharp stick at all the jokes that fall flat. But if this were say, 1986, and I had to describe Hot Tub Time Machine in two words? It'd be: Totally Bogus.
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