OK - Hot Tub Time Machine is one of the best titles for a movie in a long time. When I first heard about this I figured it had to be a joke - but it's not.
The story is pretty straightforward. Three middle-aged college buddies, John Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson, take Cusack's grown nephew and go to a ski resort where the three guys had gone when they were in school in the 1980s. The town and resort have fallen on hard times, but they want to enjoy a relaxing weekend. They get into the hot tub in their suite and begin drinking. Somehow the hot tub is a time machine (of course!) and it goes haywire and sends them back to the '80s to a fateful weekend that apparently set up a lot of the difficulties they would encounter later in their lives. They have to figure out how to enjoy themselves there, but not change what they did the first time around - to avoid a Back to the Future-type paradox situation. Okaaaay...
The concept of the film is so fucking stupid, all you can do is accept it and not ask questions. I think it's supposed to be a gross-out comedy, but it mostly comes off as a poor-man's The Hangover (which I also didn't love that much) - or rather The Hangover meets the 1990s terrible classic Ski Patrol (which I grew up with endlessly looping on late-night movie channels).
The dialogue here is pretty weak - as if they writers wanted to suggest offensive stuff, but not actually use the bad words. The most shocking stuff is the stupid amounts of drugs the guys use (I get that it's supposed to be a joke that they used lots of drugs in the 1980s, but it comes off as stale and sad in the context of the movie).
Overall this is not really funny or really gross-out offensive. It's cheap and easy and closer to a PG-13 than an R (which is like having a kids movie rated R - it just doesn't work). I actually was impressed that the story tied up well in the last 15 minutes (at least the writers got a few pages right in the script), but that was not enough to save this turd. I can't say I hated it, but it was not much of anything. It is a waste of a great title. Very sad.
Stars: 1 of 4
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