Title: Hot Tub Time Machine
Release Date: March 26, 2010
Director: Steve Pink
Production Company: United Artists
Summary/Review:
I’d be wanting to see this movie for some time even though I knew it was a low-brow, grossout movie. Still, I’m the target demographic for “men nostalgic about the 80s,” I like time travel stories, and I like the cast. The most interesting choice in making this movie is to have all the characters be so unlikable but have them played by likable actors. The mind spins as one finds oneself rooting for these jerks. And while these men returning to 1986 to relieve a weekend as their younger selves is the key part of the film, it doesn’t really feel like the film reached the potential it had to say something about past & present, youth & adulthood. It doesn’t even really seem like they tried to make it feel like the 1980s, although there are parallels to 80s comedies like Back to the Future and Weird Science. There are some good gags, but even with low expectations I’m underwhelmed by how Hot Tub Time Machine fails to explore the possibilities of its premise.
Rating: **
Panorama of the Mountains 