![]() (You will, however, doubtless have more fun if you get the joke of the preppie villain - named Blaine! - getting all amped up after watching Red Dawn, and recognize another nemesis as being played by William Zabka, the blond blowhard who made life hell for Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid.) From the genial, sometimes explosively funny crudeness to the expertly timed slapstick to the beautifully sustained running gag in which we wait, and wait, for Crispin Glover's hostile bellhop to be separated from his right arm - and every scene with that '80s touchstone Glover is a delight - Pink's movie is confident and fearless, buoyed by sensationally inventive portrayals by its quartet of stars. The last thing I want to do is make Hot Tub Time Machine sound less enjoyable than it is, and I'm not saying that the film won't be fun for those unacquainted with life pre-MTV. Adam, Nick, and Lou may do their best to alter the course of their unhappy lives, but still wind up making the same damned mistakes all over again. (Before being allowed to return to the present, our heroes must re-live their 1986 pasts or risk irreparable changes in 2010, including the probability of Jacob never being born.) Yet for all of the silliness and routinely crass jokes, screenwriters Josh Heald, Sean Anders, and John Morris also deliver a surprisingly rich and thoughtful meditation on middle-aged disappointment - given a do-over at one's youth, who wouldn't at least consider making completely different choices? - and are shrewd enough to suggest that even if you could change the past, it doesn't necessarily follow that you could change your own nature. Its Back to the Future-inspired plot, of course, is beyond ridiculous. For Hot Tub Time Machine more than lives up to the promise of its grin-inducing title the movie is both smart and joyously stupid, subtle and wildly over-the-top, clever and agreeably conventional, and, if you're of the same generation as the film's leads, it's likely to leave you with an unexpectedly potent sense of nostalgic melancholy. hot tub time machine." And then, with the slowest of head movements and the deadest of deadpans, Nick turns and stares down the camera, as if to say, "Are you freaking kidding with this?"Īt that moment, it's possible that Craig Robinson will be the only one able to keep a straight face. Gazing at the agent of this disruption with the space/time continuum, Nick says, "It's like some kind of. ![]() But their old room still has a jacuzzi, and after a debaucherous night of liquor, cocaine, and bubbling hot water, the four men awaken, and gradually discover that they've been magically transported to 1986. ![]() ![]() ![]() In the 24 years since the friends' last visit, the lodge has turned into a weathered dump. Early in director Steve Pink's new comedy, miserable fortysomethings Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Lou (Rob Corddry) decide to cheer themselves up with a weekend retreat to the beloved ski lodge of their youth, taking Adam's similarly downbeat nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) along for the trek. ![]()
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