Movie Review: Hot Tub Time Machine

Time travel is hot again within science fiction circles, most notably with last year’s mindbending season of a certain show we already write about too much around here (although I think its 2000s renaissance can all be traced back to Primer, one of my favorite movies ever). But so far, no film has had the guts to go the Back to the Future route and play time travel for laughs. And, more importantly, no one has realized the sure fire comic goldmine that is a time-travelling hot tub. But what would you call a film with such a premise? Surely it would need to be an attention-grabbing title with some immediacy. One that hinted at the numerous possibilities of such a film, without giving the whole game away.

Hot Tub Time Machine is the story of three friends (and a nephew who tags along) who travel to 1986 in their ski resort’s hot tub. They inhabit their 1986 bodies and must decide whether to protect the space-time continuum by doing exactly what they did or risk destroying the future in the name of having way more fun than they did the first time through (although, as Daniel Faraday tells us, it doesn’t matter because whatever happened, happened) (I promise this will be the last Lost reference). In keeping with our need for a deal in the current economy, Hot Tube Time Machine is really three films in one. In the first, John Cusack starts in a mash-up of High Fidelity (yay!) and Serendipity (boo!) as a guy who is scared of commitment or something and meets this flighty girl who he likes (and there’s music or something?). In the second, Craig Robinson is married to a shrewish woman who cheats on him (and wants him to take her name! Just like the ol’ ball and chain…am I right fellas???). Finally, well there’s not much of a plot for Rob Corddry’s storyline, he just acts like he dropped in from one of the weaker Apatow movies.

When Hot Tube Time Machine works, it does so in one of two ways. The first is the goofy fun it has with the conventions of time travel narratives, like the running joke with Crispin Glover’s bellhop, who has one arm in 2010, but two arms in 1986. It also head-fakes towards being an homage to 1980s comedies, like John Cusack’s Better Off Dead. But, unfortunately, the film spends waaaaay too much time on the bland trappings of modern comedy, with all the unfunny raunchiness of something like last year’s The Hangover (but none of the inspired, Galifianakis schenanigans).

It doesn’t help that Corddry, Cusack, and Robinson make for a completely unbelievable group of friends. No single member of that gang seems like he would hang out with any other one, which makes the movie’s dumb FRIENDSHIP IS AWESOME theme that much hollower. Individually, they each have some nice elements that they bring to the table, but together it is all too much. As an unabashed Cusack fan, it is disappointing to see him given the least to play, with the script sticking him in the bland good guy role. His storyline feels like someone summarizing a John Cusack movie (and not a terrible compelling one) and is just a total waste of time. Robinson is kind of funny (although his plot is even more grating than Cusack’s) and Corddry is Corddry, but the unlikely standout is Clark Duke, who gets to run around and make sarcastic comments the whole time as Cusack’s dorky nephew.

No human could rightfully expect Hot Tub Time Machine to be a comedy version of Primer or Timecrimes, but an 1980s soaked Wet Hot American Summer wasn’t out of the question for a film that clearly has such affection for the time period it’s mocking. But, unfortunately, Hot Tub Time Machine isn’t that movie. Its best moments simply made me want to go watch Back to the Future or Grosse Point Blank and, despite getting funnier towards the end, those moments were few and far between.

Jonah’s Score: 41

TUIW Grade: C-