DVD Reviews

Hot Tub Time Machine – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Jun 29, 2010, 12:50 GMT

Hot Tub Time Machine follows a group of best friends who\'ve become bored with their adult lives: Adam (John Cusack) has been dumped by his girlfriend; Lou (Rob Corddry) is a party guy who can\'t find the party; Nick\'s (Craig Robinson) wife controls his every move; and video game-obsessed Jacob (Clark Duke) won\'t leave his basement. After a crazy night of drinking in a ski resort hot tub, the men ...more

MGM was in need of a box office hit to stave off bankruptcy, what they got was Hot Tub Time Machine. 

Well, it actually turned out to not be as terrible as I first thought.  It would’ve been a big hit in 1986, but alas it was stuck with appearing in our time.  

Lou (Rob Corddry) is a drunken lout who nearly kills himself and ends up in the hospital.  His best friends Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson) are called in to pick Lou up.  In their youths, the three were inseparable but time has passed and they grew apart. 

Adam’s longtime girlfriend has just moved out and taken most of his gusto with her.  His twenty-year-old nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) is living in his basement and spends most of his time on the web. 

Nick is under the thumb of his wife and is also feeling like his better days are behind him.  When they check Lou out of the hospital they, with Jacob in tow, decide to go to Kodiak Valley ski resort to traipse down memory lane as their best times were had there. 

What they find is a surly, one-armed bellhop (Crispin Glover) and a rundown resort that basically reflects the way their lives have gone.  What to do in this situation?  Drink heavily of course.  As our group gets soused they hop into their room’s hot tub. 

A spilled illegal Russian energy drink on the tub’s workings produces a time vortex (best not to think too much about it) and they travel back to 1986.  They’re still their old selves but they’re in their younger, fitter bodies.

Now they have to try and recreate all of their missteps from 1986 according to a mysterious hot tub repairman (Chevy Chase) unless they want to screw up the future… or do they?  

I didn’t have high expectations for Hot Tub Time Machine.  The name itself doesn’t exactly inspire confidence but then Craig Robinson just stares at the screen with an “I know it’s stupid but are you gonna argue with me MF-er?” look on his face.  However, it has a game cast that starts with Robinson himself who steals the show with his deadpan comedy. 

Cusack scored much better with his earlier efforts with Steve Pink, Pink wrote and produced Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity and steps into the director’s shoes with Hot Tub Time Machine.  Rob Corddry has deadpanned his loser drunk persona before and dusts off the same sad sack here.  Clark Duke plays an affable twenty-something, but it is Robinson that steals the show. 

Of the cameos, Crispin Glover actually is pretty good first as the creepy bellhop and then we keep waiting for the incident that is to have him missing an arm.  Chevy Chase doesn’t do much with his cameo, but it is nice to see Duke and him try for one scene. 

The whole film does smack of a try at an attempt in pulling off another Caddyshack, but if that was the try then it fails.  It did succeed in the “it wasn’t as lame as I thought” test and there are some belly laughs to be found.  

Hot Tub Time Machine is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions.  It is presented in both theatrical and unrated cuts.  Special features include 12 minutes of deleted scenes, the 2 minute theatrical trailer, and previews of other Fox/MGM products.  

Hot Tub Time Machine is not a film that you should think too much about.  I mean… Hot Tub?  Time Machine?  C’mon! 

However, for those of us that remember the 80s and find themselves looking at their ever-growing paunch it might be a nice trip down memory lane.  Sadly, once the end credits roll you’ll be just as paunchy as you were when you hit the play button.  

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