Hot Tub Time Machine

(2010)

Dir: Steve Pink

It was acceptable in the 80s.

What a pleasant surprise. I certainly didn’t go into Hot Tub Time Machine with high hopes. They say never judge a book by its cover, but in my defence, this film does have one horrible cover. But that’s what makes Steve Pink’s throwback comedy even more enjoyable, the fact that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy myself.

The premise is as simple and ridiculous as you can get, as three childhood friends, along with one of their nephews, take a trip to an old teenage haunt of theirs for some r ‘n’ r, but end up travelling back to the 1980s thanks to the titular hot tub. It is like some insane cross between Back to the Future (it even has Crispin bloody Glover in it!) and The Hangover. Whilst it isn’t on the same level as Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 time travel romp, Hot Tub Time Machine destroys Todd Phillips’s supposedly ‘cooler’ affair. Gone are the slick pretty-boys being made to look uncool by their loser friends; instead we get four absolutely torrid deadbeats, played by John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Clark Duke and Craig Robinson.

In its gentle ribbing of 80s teen cinema, Hot Tub Time Machine excels, complete with ski-resort setting, twattish bully, fights, strangely impressionable young women and lots of hideous, hideous jumpers. Cusack obviously has no problem in this kind of role, but the rest of the cast supports him ably. Corddry is an annoying prick, but that’s his character, whilst Duke is fine as Cusack’s young nephew, and the monosyllabic Robinson gets one of the most hilarious scenes, as he berates his startled eight-year-old future wife on the phone for having an affair some twenty years later.

Just like its misleading title, Hot Tub Time Machine doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a bit of fun on a Friday night. And it does a damn good job at it.

*** ½ / *****