The latest entry in Hollywood’s tradition of high-concept but low-brow comedies, Hot Tub Time Machine, taps into the current ironic-nostalgic trend of revisiting the 1980s. When Lou (Rob Corddry) drives home drunk and nearly kills himself from carbon monoxide poisoning, his friends Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson) decide to take his mind off things by taking him on holiday to ski resort Kodiak Valley, where the three of them had some wild times together as teenagers. Adam’s nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) comes along for the ride.
When the four of them reach the resort, they discover that it has fallen into disrepair and is virtually deserted. To drown their sorrows, they get drunk and fall asleep in the hot tub outside their chalet. When they wake up, guess what? It’s 1986 again.
The rest of the film tries to get as much mileage as possible out of the fact that people wore different clothes in the 80s, and that technology wasn’t as advanced back then as it is now. It also shows the three old friends getting to relive their booze and sex-filled youth, in sequences that are pitched squarely at the same lobotomised male audience that The Hangover appealed to last year – anyone looking for a three-dimensional female character should search elsewhere.
It’s a shame because, as with The Hangover, many of the cast are clearly talented comic actors, who have demonstrated as much in previous work. Rob Corddry’s been in Curb Your Enthusiasm; Craig Robinson The Office; Clark Duke had a gently funny web sitcom with Michael Cera; John Cusack has been in some great films. It’s impossible to shake the feeling that these performers are better than the C-grade material that is Hot Tub Time Machine. Together they could have pulled off something awesome; instead, the film they’ve settled for is dumbed-down and crass.
Of course, it’s hardly fair to expect an exquisitely wrought work of art from a film with a title like Hot Tub Time Machine. It’s a movie that aims for pure mindless fun. But it remains unsuccessful even on that level; it’s overlong, stretched too thin, and more often than not it’s just plain tedious.
True, there are some laugh-out-loud hilarious moments – in particular, Nick confirms that he’s travelled back through time to the 1980s by asking someone “What colour is Michael Jackson?”, and she replies, “Black”. Finally, though, Hot Tub Time Machine might have worked better as a fake trailer on a comedy sketch show rather than as an actual film: it’s a mildly funny idea, but hardly good enough to warrant feature length.
Overall Verdict: It might just about pass muster for particularly undemanding adolescent males.
Special Features:
Deleted Scenes
Digital Copy
Reviewer: Tom René