Review

Review Date: 28-March-10
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Being an age where I might have attended high school with John Cusack, I should be in tune with his retro buddy comedy Hot Tub Time Machine, right? Au con-friggin'-traire. I appreciate leg warmer jokes and hair metal nostalgia as much as the next person, but I do not understand so-called humor that is based on people getting high, having sex with other morons, and stopping solid or sharp objects with their face. That describes about 90 percent of this flick, which follows three losers in their forties (Cusack, Craig Robinson, and Rob Corddry) and one loser in his twenties (Clark Duke) who go to a ski lodge for post-suicide-attempt relaxation and end up transported back to 1986. In addition to the aforementioned "humor," there is a scene where one of the guys is almost forced to perform fellatio on another in front of a crowd of cheering bargoers. Honestly, what is the point of that? Penises, blow jobs, and gays, oh my! Nope, nothing about that situation is remotely amusing or shocking. It's just nonsensical vulgarity for which there is no excuse.

But it's the other 10 percent of Hot Tub Time Machine that really gets my goat. When the guys aren't screwing around in one way or another, they're making pathetic forays into male bonding and soul searching which finally lead to happy endings all around. WTF? (To use a handy modern phrase.) When people are selfish, puny, alcoholic dipshits, of course they are going to hate their crappy lives: that's perfectly and acceptably natural. But in this perverse fantasy the men get to be selfish, puny, alcoholic dipshits AND have tons of cash and happy marriages and home lives. That is exactly the kind of revolting shallowness that gives the Reagan Era a bad name.

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