Hot Tub Time Machine

Director: Steve Pink
Cast: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Chevy Chase
DVD release: 1 September 2010
Rated: MA 15+

If you like boisterous, in-your-face, ribald, gross-out humour of the American persuasion then Hot Tub Time Machine will be your bag. This a wacky time travel travesty which would seriously worry H. G. Wells. The concept of older guys time travelling back to their youth has been around since John Frankenheimer’s Seconds (1966), the nutty method of travel here the result of a scriptwriter’s brainstorm.

You have to be concerned John Cusask general nice guy and good actor had anything to do with this screamer. Best thing in the movie the welcome cameo appearance of Chevvy Chase showing the youngsters how to steal a scene with just a roll of the eyes.

Starting in the present day we have four not especially close friends bored with their adult lifestyle. Adam (John Cusack) has parted from his girlfriend, suicidal loudmouth Lou (Rob Corddry) the good time guy going nowhere, Nick (Craig Robinson) with bossy wife who might be cheating on him, with young Jacob (Clark Duke) a video games dork hardly into the real world. Nick has the dubious privilege of delivering straight faced the movie's title.

The guys get the idea of a nostalgic reunion trip to a ski resort where back in the eighties they sowed their oats. They find the resort gone to pot and the once funky motel now a shambles. Deciding to drown their sorrows in a binge night they end up taking a boozy plunge in the motel’s old hot tub. Lo and behold quick as you can yodel Yankee Doodle they’re whipped back to the year 1986. The resort fully restored to its former technicolor splendor, everyone in full party mode.

Here they’re seen as being their teenage selves, although to each other they look normal. Despite the obvious charm of the abundance of hot chicks at resort party time, the boys have to somehow return to 2010 without incurring the dreaded butterfly effect. A can of Russian soda holds the key, and the results are life changing to say the least.

Directed in a lather of sweat by Steve Pink belting the crude jokes out at frantic pace, but leaving the characters as rather stereotypes. There’s references to earlier time travel film junkets, a homage to more effective trips into the past. The story by Josh Heald later developed into the screenplay by himself and others. That’s not to say the film is devoid of laughs at times there’s quite funny sequences, but it struggles with the uneven script. Some good gags finally run out of steam like the one armed bellhop (actually Crispin Glover from guess what - Back to the Future) who keeps appearing with or without two arms. Special effects have the 'Made for TV' label stamped on them.

John Cusack (2012) pleasantly walks through his role being the most appealing of the four major players. Rob Corddry (What Happens In Vegas) as megamouth Lou enjoys playing the wildest of the group. Craig Robinson (The Office) and Clark Duke (Kick-Ass) at least aren’t too offensive, the latter has a few of the best moments in the movie. Robinson excels himself in a comic scene with a lusty young bimbo trying to seduce him while he sadly battles against her obvious charms in case the future might be irrevocably altered.

I’m sure there’s a young male oriented audience out there who'll appreciate the style of humour at the level of dog turds or catheters spraying urine, otherwise there are far better things to do on a Saturday night. In mentioning the comedy hit Hangover, I must point out it would be a five star rating compared with Hot Tub Time Machine making two by my score.

John Bale