Never has conforming to comedy archetypes been so acceptable. Hot Tub Time Machine may be a concoction of rehashed jokes, forgettable slapstick and referential one-liners but you can forgive yourself for laughing anyway – the delivery and execution of each joke is so clinical this guilty pleasure is one you can tell your friends about.
What makes Hot Tub Time Machine funny is that doesn’t dress itself up a modern day teen comedy – there may be a no-holds-barred approach to making you laugh with teen spirit is in full flow but because 75% of the people in the tub are well over the drinking age the childish idiocy of the whole affair is strangely genius.
It won’t have been an Archimedes moment that director Steve Pink had when the idea for the film came to him: I doubt Steve jumped out of a tub and ran around naked praising his film idea discovery. The idea even after its realisation isn’t exactly bulletproof – thankfully 80s golden boy John Cusack along with Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry and youngster Clark Duke are the more than suitable layers of gauze to patch up the holes in the plot-line.
The story is simple enough: Adam, Nick and Lou (Cusack, Robinson and Corddry) aren’t living the lives they want to. Lou is the most depressed – he almost kills himself. Adam and Nick decide that a drunken weekend at a ski lodge the three of them spent their childhoods at would be the ultimate tonic for the middle-aged blues. Adam brings his geek nephew Jacob (Duke) along for the ride and the four of them head to the lodge. When they get there they find the place is less than pleasant – walking Back to the Future reference Crispin Glover is the disgruntled bellboy with one arm which Lou can’t resist pointing out.
Hot Tub Time Machine doesn't really explain any of its absurdities. Not that it has to: no-one's expecting it to...
Whilst the four guys are planning the night ahead, the back door of their room bursts open – a hot tub on the decking of their room awaits them. The four guys decide to use it and so begins a lot of drinking, spinning camera shots and some random person in a bear costume joining them in the tub. The next morning they wake up in 1986 – it takes a few minutes, some spot-on references and brilliant moments of realisation to realise their hot tub does a bit more than shoot jets of water around.
Cue the abandonment of modern etiquette: in ’86 there are no rules and “everybody gets laid”. Adam realises he’s returned to the night where he dumped the one that got away – the “great white buffalo” you speak of in a hushed voice. Nick realises he has sex with a very hot girl but is in his mind married to someone who is nine years old. Jacob wasn’t born but meets his mother and realises he’s in a world without the internet whilst Lou takes advantage of knowing the future.
Four different reactions to travelling back in time in a hot tub, but four reactions that each bring a host of laughs. It’s literally comedy carnage – the jokes hit you at force and the crude nature of them only serves to heighten the fun. Sure, there are more inconsistencies in the storyline than even Michael Bay would be content with but who cares? You’re too busy waiting for Glover to get his arm chopped off.
Obviously with a film like this, any deep and immersive theories of time travel aren’t going to crop up: instead, there’s Chevy Chase as a mystical hot tub repairman, an expertly executed breaking of the fourth wall by Craig Robinson and an eventual disregard for the Butterfly Effect by all four of the guys. Things get sillier and sillier and the jokes get better and better – even the clichéd ending is in itself a joke thanks entirely to Lou.
Overall Impressions:
Hot Tub Time Machine is the type of film you rarely come across: a B-movie comedy. In nature and spirit it’s ridiculous, over-the-top and wildly jagged in plot but you honestly don’t care about any of its imperfections, however obvious they may be. You’re not watching it because you want to see an intelligent comedy: just like Snakes on a Plane, the allure of the film and its intentions are made clear from its title alone.
Hot Tub Time Machine is the ultimate casual film – an abomination for those seeking highbrow visual entertainment but supreme hilarity for those looking for a cheeky dose of pure, unadulterated comedy crack.
Rating: 
