Hot Tub Time Machine follows a group of best friends who’ve become bored with their adult lives. In 2010, three old friends, Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Lou (Rob Corddry), do not have the lives they once wished for. Adam has been dumped by his girlfriend; Lou is a party guy who can’t find the party; Nick’s wife controls his every move; and video game-obsessed Jacob won’t leave his basement. Divorced, depressed, and otherwise unsatisfied, they decide to spend a weekend in an old favorite ski village, After a crazy night of drinking in a ski resort hot tub, the men wake up, heads’ pounding, in the year 1986. This is their chance to kick some past and change their futures, have a choice to walk the same path and not upset the space/time continuum, or to re-do things that felt unfinished, including the decision to dump or not dump an old girlfriend, or stand up to a bully. One will find a new love life, one will learn to stand up for himself with the ladies, one will find his mojo, and one will make sure he still exists!
It may centre on the decade of shame, but you don’t have to have been of age in the ’80s to get into the groove. The foursome of leads on electric form makes this the best dumb fun of the year to date, and you have to watch out for Hot Tub Time Machine 2. This movie works best when it’s at its most vile and ridiculous. It’s only in the serious moments that it lags, it doesn’t have the chops to pull off being a complete movie the way better entries in the raunchy genre have. It’s funny when it needs to be and entertaining enough overall, especially in a couple of brilliantly staged musical moments, that you’ll enjoy it. It’s best seen as a group experience, the perfect buddy movie, the movie to see when you’re out on the town a little bit tipsy and ready for action.
