Oh, to have access to an actual hot tub time machine. Then I could flash back a few hours, sprint to the theater, and prevent myself from wasting time on the disappointing Hot Tub Time Machine.
"Waste" is the key word here. Steve Pink's retro road flick squanders inspired casting, decent throwback production designs, and an alarming amount of comedic potential as it time-travels four depressed friends to the carefree 1980s so they can correct past mistakes and better their eventual futures.
Recently divorced Adam (John Cusack) wonders if he should reconcile with Jennie (Lyndsy Fonseca), the vapid dream girl he foolishly dumped. Unhappy Nick (Craig Robinson) reawakens his passion for music, which he shelved once he married his best friend, Courtney (Kellee Stewart). Lou (Rob Corddry) is a jerk, no matter the decade. And Adam's antisocial nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke) -- who tags along because the movie needs to somehow appeal to younger ticket buyers -- flickers in and out like Marty McFly's siblings because in 1986, he hasn't yet been conceived.
Admittedly, I'm judging Hot Tub against my own dashed expectations. As a proud member of the generation who watched Cusack make his bones in '80s teen comedies -- as well as help define the genre with the hilariously poignant Better Off Dead -- I hoped Hot Tub would find ways to cleverly spoof the decade of excess.
There are definite indications that someone, at some point, intended to do exactly that. My best guess says it was Pink, who co-wrote two fine Cusack films (Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity) and must have understood the nostalgic buzz of returning the now-sullen actor to his teen-comedy roots. The movie's funniest jokes are actual movie quotes borrowed from Better Off Dead and The Karate Kid, then buried (almost imperceptibly) into the background noise. And as another self-referential nod to the Back to the Future franchise, Hot Tub casts the original George McFly, Crispin Glover, as a handicapped bellhop, then requires him to squirm through an uncomfortable running joke involving the amputation of one of his limbs.
Hot Tub has its moments. Robinson's deadpan delivery invigorates a stale, lifeless script (credited to three writers). The soundtrack -- peppered with catchy new wave and hair metal tracks -- deserves to be downloaded. And Karate Kid baddie William Zabka dons a bushy mustache and James Spader-esque mullet for a fairly entertaining bar-fight scene.
But Hot Tub travels great distances just to make the same old piss, vomit, semen, dog crap, and oral sex jokes that grew tiresome in the late 1990s. The setups are lifeless, and the gross-out payoffs are awkwardly plotted. Expect to see plenty more of these formulaic and infantile comedies as studios sift through the muck in search of the next Hangover.
