GROSS. POINT BLANK.
Hot Tub Time Machine
**
Review by Mark Tucci
When speaking about this film to others during the weeks prior to its release, the mere mention of its name often drew bizarre looks of disbelief from those who’d not seen the trailer. What? “Hot Tub Time Machine”? Are you serious? That has to be a joke. Who would make a movie called “Hot Tub Time Machine”? That’s ridiculous.
Well, that’s the point. Anyone walking in to a theater with “Hot Tub Time Machine” on the marquee should understand that this is going to be a pretty ridiculous film.
The very premise itself sounds ridiculous to even explain, and I can only imagine how the pitch session for this film went. “Okay, we’ve got three middle-age guys and one teenage son who are basically all losers. They go on this ski trip to this resort where they used to party years ago. During a wild, alcohol-induced evening, they all stumble into this hot tub that’s actually a time machine, and the next thing they know – boom! They’re back in 1986! Oh, and Chevy Chase is the only one that can help them get home, for some reason.”
If you can accept that premise, remove any sense of plausibility and ignore all manner of far-reaching plot contrivances, you’ll probably enjoy this movie a whole lot, if you haven’t enjoyed it somewhere else before already.
“Hot Tub Time Machine” treads familiar water with both its characters and its brand of humor. Stars John Cusack (2012), Craig Robinson (The Office), Rob Corddry (The Daily Show) and Clark Duke (Sex Drive), are all very good and bring their own particular talents to bear upon these retread movie characters, but with such a great cast, I was hoping for something a little more original. The stand-out in this group though is Corddry, whose comedic talents really get to shine in this role.
Director Steve Pink, who helmed 2006’s “Accepted” and wrote and produced “Grosse Pointe Blank” and “High Fidelity” with star John Cusack, never sets the bar too high for this film, opting for low brow gags and gross-out humor at every turn. This is not to say that the film isn’t funny or that the humor doesn’t work in places, but it certainly doesn’t rely on situational humor like other, smarter comedies that have come before it.
With such an over-the-top premise, the movie all but ignores any effort to explain the how and why of this unbelievable predicament and instead chooses to focus on more familiar paths such as changing past mistakes and taking advantage of future knowledge, after all – there’s much more fun to be had in scenes like that versus figuring out how the hell a hot tub could actually be a time machine, and why it would be found in a dumpy hotel ski resort? The movie’s lone attempt at reason makes note of the butterfly effect, which forces the characters to try and do everything exactly as they had 25 years earlier, lest they jeopardize the existence of young Jacob, played by Clark Duke.
The great 1985 movie, “Back to the Future”, often came to mind when watching this film, as it was the last really good time travel comedy that was made, in my opinion. “Back to the Future” proved that you could make a successful movie that had a simple premise, was funny, yet still managed to maintain some sense of credibility through an infusion of science. If it wasn’t for Doc Brown, most of us would never appreciate the dangers of disrupting the space-time continuum, know what a flux capacitor can do, or what power lays behind a 1.21 gigawatt jolt of electricity. Perhaps “Hot Tub Time Machine” assumes that we’ve all seen “Back to the Future” and are schooled about such matters, hence its reason for not going there. But in the long, slow, dumbing-down of movie-going audiences between 1985 and 2010, it’s obvious that the Hollywood bean counters know what puts butts in seats: gross-out gags and bathroom humor, not science. How ironic then, that these characters end up in 1986. It’s just too bad the rest of the film didn’t go there as well.
Not that they didn’t make the attempt. For the most part, the movie does a good job of trying to put you back in the 80s. But ultimately it feels more like being in the “Cafe 80s” from “Back to the Future: Part Two” rather than the actual 80s. There are a number of homages and references to classic 80s movies, and I found myself laughing at many of them that went over the heads of the younger audience members. If you’re a child of that era, you may get some added chuckles.
Plot holes, plausibility and familiar territory aside, I did find myself laughing quite a bit at this film, but the scenes played out like individual skits rather than as part of a complete movie. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, as it plays out gags containing just about every form of bodily fluid from blood to bile to urine and then some. In the end, the laughs did not make up for the weak premise and shaky foundation this film was based on. Chevy Chase’s character is wasted and felt like an afterthought. For a movie about time travel, there wasn’t a good sense of time passing at all in this film. Events dragged on and characters stumbled through what seemed like endless evenings and days. If it weren’t for Chevy showing up every now and then to try and instill some degree of urgency to their plight, you’d have no idea that these guys were trying to actually accomplish something.
With the exception of a funny and particularly twisted sub-plot involving Crispin Glover, most of this movie can be grasped by simply watching the trailer and TV commercials. Yet another example where the ads for the film provide you with almost everything there is to enjoy about it.
I’ve seen far worse comedies in my day, but far better ones as well. Depending upon your tastes, “Hot Tub Time Machine” could be good for a few laughs or a lot, but either way you could probably wait to do your laughing from home.
Directed by: Steve Pink
Release Date: March 26, 2010
Run Time: 100 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: MGM
