Not since Snakes on a Plane has there been such a high-concept premise for a film than Hot Tub Time Machine. It’s this year’s The Hangover, a comedy with low-brow laughs about overgrown man-children and male bonding.
The quartet of protagonists in Hot Tub Time Machine are Adam (John Cusack), the most successful of the bunch who has just been dumped by his girlfriend; Jacob (Clark Duke), Adam’s nerdy nephew who lives in his uncle’s basement playing internet video games; Nick (Craig Robinson), a former singer now working as a dog groomer; and the obnoxious Lou (Rob Corddry). Lou may be an asshole, but he’s their asshole.
After a drunken night of debauchery, Lou parks his car in the garage and rocks out to Motley Crue. He doesn’t notice the garage door has shut and is hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning. Lou’s pals believe he tried to commit suicide and decide to cheer him up. The gang goes on a trip to the Kodiak Valley Ski Resort where they partied as teenagers. However, the poor economy has struck and the popular hotspot has become a dilapidated mess of abandoned shop fronts. That doesn’t stop the boys from getting totally and utterly shitfaced in their hot tub. One dizzying montage later, they find themselves back in their younger bodies in 1986.
At first, they attempt to do everything exactly the way it happened so as not to disrupt the timestream. It’s Lou who decides to do all the things you aren’t supposed to do in a time travel movie. He wants to use his knowledge of the future to make himself rich while righting a few old wrongs, including a beating at the hands of a douchebag ski patrolman with the classic 80’s villain name of Blaine (Sebastian Stan). The others begin questioning their paths. Adam is conflicted between the girl (Lyndsy Fonseca) he regrets breaking up with and a free-spirited journalist (Lizzy Caplan) he bumps into.
Steve Pink, the co-writer of two other Cusack films, Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity, directs from a script by Josh Heald, Sean Anders, and John Morris. The latter two also penned She’s Out of My League and you can see their stamp on every scatological joke. They also make several nods to Back to the Future such as making time travel a secondary plotline. The real story lies with the relationships between the main characters. In another nod to those classic Michael J. Fox flicks, Jacob flickers in and out because he may or may not be conceived.
There are plenty of other 80’s references to be had in Hot Tub, including cameos by icons of the decade like Chevy Chase as the mystical hot tub repairman and William Zabka (you know, ”Put ‘em in a bodybag, Johnny” from Karate Kid). But, the best is reserved for Crispin Glover who is absolutely hilarious as a surly, one-armed bellhop. The running gag is you keep waiting for the moment when he lost that other arm. Not to be outshined is Craig Robinson whose mastery of the deadpan one-liners has made him one of today’s funniest character actors.
Sadly, most of the jokes are the easy ones about Michael Jackson’s skin color and legwarmers. You would think that putting John Cusack back in the 80’s at a ski lodge would have yielded some great meta-textual gags. Alas, nary a reference to Better Off Dead is made aside from a fleeting line about “two dollars” at the beginning.
Hot Tub Time Machine is loaded with vulgarities and sophomoric humor which will likely be a put-off to most. If you’re able to get past all that, you’ll find a raunchy, yet touching, comedy with a quartet of strong characters.
Rating: ** ½
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