2 Stars Directed by: Steve Pink Starring: John Cusack, Rob Corddry Rated R, 100 min.
Sometimes, all you want to do is see a movie that doesn’t require too much thinking. However, when said dumb movie gets too complicated to follow, you know you’re in trouble. Such is the main problem with Hot Tub Time Machine.
The movie centers around three best friends who no longer speak to each other for reasons that are never made clear. After Lou (Rob Corddry) ends up in the hospital, Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson) decide to cheer him up by taking him to a ski resort. After a crazy night of drinking in a hot tub, the three friends, along with Adam’s nephew, Jacob (oh, hey Dale from Greek!), wake up to discover that they’ve traveled back in time to 1986. They only have one day full of neon ski gear and ‘80s hair metal to figure out how to get back to the present without irrevocably changing their futures.
The plot is obviously meant to be light, but it quickly goes south as the writers give up on any semblance of continuity. The time travelers are not supposed to change the past, but the past keeps inexplicably changing on them. At one point, it seems we’re finally going to find out what separated these three old friends, but after being briefly mentioned, the “Cincinnati Incident” is never brought up again. Not that it’s hard to imagine the end of their friendship — they don’t seem to have anything in common, and there is no chemistry among them.
Whenever the plot gets truly desperate, Hot Tub Time Machine resorts to cheap, gross out scenes, featuring gratuitous vomit, blood and excrement. The movie has some laughs and a great soundtrack of ‘80s hits, but by the end, the main feeling is one of bewilderment as to how this movie ever got made.
