> Hot Tub Time Machine
2 stars (out of 5)
Director: Steve Pink
Cast: John Cusack, Clark Duke, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, Sebastian Stan, Crispin Glover, Chevy Chase
Rating: (R16)
The poster for Hot Tub Time Machine (Rialto and Hoyts) makes it look as if it has possibilities. With its R16 rating it is going to be of maximum allure to 14-year-olds, which is a pity, because all the good gags are predicated on a solid knowledge of '80s trivia.
Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson) and Lou (Rob Corddry) were best buds in the '80s but as they have grown up the friendship has drifted.
Events see them heading off to Kodiak Valley, where they had some of their greatest moments, and, well, they get into that hot tub which just happens to be a time machine. Whisked back to the '80s they find things were not as great as they remembered them.
Using their entire knowledge of time travel (gleaned from movies) they try to redo things exactly as before in order not to muck up the timeline.
Well, that is the theory. Instead they are soon skiving off having their own little adventures.
Hot Tub Time Machine has ambitions to be a full-on, gross-out comedy, but there is something timid at its core. Unless a film is prepared to follow through, there is no point in it raising the stakes.
As a filthy-mouthed rip-off of Back to the Future it is passable, but as a potential ground-breaker it never even comes close.
Best thing: John Cusack having fun parodying all those dumb teen movies he made in the '80s.
Worst thing: Those dumb teen movies he made in the '80s were way smarter than this.
See it with: Your teenage children so you can point out how widely inappropriate it all is and anyway, no-one you knew ever did anything in any way like any of that.
- Christine Powley.
