Hot Tub Time Machine

The H-Bomb: Three life long friends, who have drifted apart over the years, are now all middle-aged and unhappy. There’s Adam (John Cusack), an insurance salesman who’s girlfriend has just left him, taking nearly all his possessions with her (the bitch even took his TV). There’s Nick (Craig Robinson), a once promising musician who has taken his wife’s last name and works a dead end job squeezing out dogs’ clogged up assholes. Then finally there’s Lou (Rob Corddry), a boorish, divorced alcoholic. After Lou winds up in the hospital for what he claims to be an accident, but his friends suspect was a suicide attempt, Adam and Nick decide to take him up to a ski resort that was the party capital of their youth, with Adam’s dorky 20 year old nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) in tow.

So they hit the road for this resort, expecting to relive the wild days of their youth (sex, drugs, booze) only to find that the small town has gone completely down the shitter over the years, and that their hotel/lodge is a musty, decaying, depressing dump, complete with a surly, one armed Bellhop (Crispin Glover). Of course they’re disappointed, but, determined not to let the trip be a complete bust, they all hop into the hot tub out back and drink the night away… in what has to be one of the most bizarre and annoying montages I have ever seen in my life.

The next day, after noticing such strange things as gerry curls, mullets, brand new Miami Vice t-shirts, and live newscasts of Ronald Reagan, the guys slowly realize that they’ve gone back in time to the year 1986. Then they realize something else… not only did they go back in time, but to everyone around them, they look exactly like they did twenty four years ago. They’re in the bodies of their past selves! Now they have to find a way back to their own time, while remembering to do exactly what they did that day twenty four years earlier, so as to not fuck up the space-time continuum. Needless to say, complications, of many varieties, arise… such as women, bullies, and a squirrel covered in vomit (don’t ask).

As a critic, I try to go into every film, no matter what the genre, with an open mind. But to be honest, sitting down to view this one, I was expecting it to be nothing more than one big regurgitated waste of celluloid. I mean, come on, just the title alone is fucktarded beyond belief. Say it out loud to yourself and tell me it doesn’t sound utterly ridiculous. That’s why I was so surprised to find that it’s enjoyable, and often freaking hilarious from beginning to end. It’s raunchy, rude, R-rated comedy at its best. Think of it as “The Hangover with a time travel element, and you basically get the gist.

Part of what I think makes this work is the fact that the movie never really takes itself too seriously for a second. The explanation of how the main characters were able to travel back in time through a FUCKING HOT TUB is especially absurd, but in a good way. In a way that will make you laugh your ass off. In fact, I think the screenwriters deliberately made it absurd because the idea of time travel itself is truly absurd, when you think about it. Is a hot tub time machine really less believable than the Flux Capacitor, or the convoluted, scientific mumbo jumbo explanation for time travel that “Primer” gave us?

Aside from the almost non-stop, often hysterical gags, an aspect that I really liked about this film is all the nods to time travel movies of the past. Everything from “The Butterfly Effect” (which was a piece of shit, but I digress) to “The Terminator” gets a mention here. But the biggest nod has to be the appearance of Crispin Glover, who of course played the Dad in “Back to the Future”. There are two other nods to the “Back to the Future” movies that I spotted here, one major, one subtle, but I won’t spoil them. If one of you fine readers picks up on them, please do comment below.

The entire cast is terrific here. John Cusack does his typical dry, straight man role that he can do in his sleep by now, and he does it well. Craig Robinson, who you might remember from “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”, is cool and funny at the same time, and the scene where he’s cursing out a nine year old girl over the telephone (for reasons I won’t go into), is classic. But the real standout for me was Rob Corddry, as the bald, drunk, never-quite-outgrew-adolescence loser of the group. I’ve never seen him in anything before, but he just walks away with the whole movie, as far as I’m concerned. His character is a completely selfish prick, but he’s weirdly endearing at the same time. As he’s described by his friends, “He’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.” Rounding out the colorful cast is Chevy Chase, who plays a rather mysterious “Repair Man.”

Director Steve Pink (who co-wrote “Grosse Point Blank” and “High Fidelity” with Cusack years ago) displays not only a terrific sense of comedic timing, but also a solid visual eye. I think his only misstep was his over-directed, over-edited, irritating as fuck all montage in the hot tub that I mentioned earlier. That aside, he did a fine job.

Overall, “Hot Tub Time Machine” is a movie about middle aged men who get the chance to do something middle aged men in the real world can only dream about… a chance to relive their youth. Among all the crude sex jokes, there’s something kind of poignant about that… I think. Oh fuck it, what am I talking about? I liked this movie so much because it made me laugh harder than any film I’ve seen recently. It’s no classic, but if you’re a fan of hard R-rated comedies, or movies with a shit-ton of 80’s references, then I highly recommend you check it out.