""Hot Tub Time Machine"" is like the VH1 program ""I Love the '80s."" It will make viewers nostalgic for a simpler time (remember how awesome ""Back to the Future"" was?),and will even offer occasional bursts of laugh-out-loud hilarity (though from Craig Robinson, not from Michael Ian Black or Hal Sparks). But like ""I Love the '80s,"" ""Hot Tub Time Machine"" is a clash between two distinctly different generations, and the results are mixed at best.
The premise of ""Hot Tub Time Machine"" essentially boils down to a combination of ""Back to the Future"" and ""The Hangover."" Three friends look to reconnect and relive their days of youth via a wild weekend in an exotic locale. That locale isn't Vegas, however, it's the '80s. Adam ('80s legend John Cusack) is our 40-something protagonist, left in a midlife crisis after his girlfriend moves out. Nick (the consistently funny Craig Robinson) lives a humdrum life in suburbia, working at a pet store called 'Sup Dawg and being ""whipped"" by his wife (according to his friends anyway). Lou (Rob Corddry) is a crazy boozehound who seems to have no sense of dignity, or sense in general. Along with Adam's nephew Jake (Clark Duke), the group uses their magical hot tub to travel back to a ski lodge in 1986, where hijinks inevitably ensue.
Some of the characters in ""Hot Tub Time Machine"" offer solid, if not spectacular-performances. Crispin Glover (George McFly from ""Back to the Future"") plays a bellhop who the characters know loses his arm in the near future. His clumsiness is a constant source of hilarity, as the gang waits for the inevitable accidental amputation to occur. Robinson shines in a slightly toned-down role, and his Black Eyed Peas ballad, meant to mimic the ""Enchantment Under the Sea"" moment from ""Back to the Future,"" is a well-placed gag.
Others, however, do not fare as well. Duke's role as the only tubber who never lived in the '80s is mostly reserved for jokes about iPods and the Internet or confusion as to why his mom is suddenly hot and sexually promiscuous, evoking the weird relationship between Marty McFly and his mom in ""Back to the Future."" Cusack seems to be phoning it in at times, assuming that simply by showing up and wearing a trench coat, people will remember his iconic boombox-holding character from ""Say Anything."" Perhaps he still owed director Steve Pink (producer of Cusack films ""Grosse Pointe Blank"" and ""High Fidelity"") a favor from the last time they worked together. Corddry is trying too hard to be a Zach Galifianakis clone, using outrageous facial tics, social awkwardness and physical comedy to chew up scenery. And while the occasional gross-out sexual gag is always appreciated, the number of blowjob jokes and excretory gags nears ""South Park"" levels.
""Hot Tub Time Machine"" may not win any awards besides the ""Snakes on a Plane"" award for most straightforward movie title of the year, but it will satisfy a niche audience looking for a 1980s version of ""The Hangover."" But throwing Poison and Chevy Chase cameos together with an unlimited supply of raunchiness does not make a movie. Sure, there are laughs, and yes, some bits of nostalgia succeed, but on the whole, this hot tub loses steam pretty quickly.
