Hello, McFly, anybody home?
George McFly himself, Crispin Glover, has gone back in time in this lazily scripted, but undeniably funny time-travel comedy that finds four losers – three 40-something buddies and a 20-year-old who lives in his uncle’s basement submerged in “Second Life” – hurtling back to the Reagan era via the titular time machine.
Anchoring the ’80s flashback is John Cusack, an actor who came to prominence during the decade in films like “Better Off Dead,” a comedy that’s referenced in this film’s ski-resort setting; at one point, someone is heard uttering the 1985 movie’s iconic “two dollars, I want my two dollars” line for no discernible reason.
Of course, there’s also no good reason why a hot tub should function as a time-travel device; the screenplay (credited to Josh Heald and “She’s Out of My League” scribes Sean Anders and John Morris) doesn’t even try to explain it.
Things begin when loutish Lou (Rob Corddry, late of “The Daily Show”) nearly dies in a drunken, possible suicide attempt, although he protests the notion to Adam (Cusack) and Nick (hilariously played by Craig Robinson of “The Office”), his old high school homeboys who visit him in the hospital. “If I wanted to kill myself, I’d (expletive) kill myself,” he tells his pals, adding “I’d be awesome at it,” before yanking out his catheter, covering Nick in pee in the process.
But it’s viewers who might feel soiled after Adam and Nick decide to cheer Lou up by getting away to Kodiak Valley, where the trio hope to recapture the youthful magic of Winterfest ’86, an epic weekend of debauchery that set the three on a path to ruin. It’s at this now-dilapidated resort that the screw-ups, joined by Adam’s nephew Jacob (“Sex Drive”), take the fateful plunge into a hot tub, emerging 24 years earlier, where history can be changed – and Jacob’s entire existence might be erased.
Steve Pink, one of Cusack’s actual high school pals, directed. It’s a serviceable job.
But it’s Glover’s bellhop, whose missing arm in 2010 provides the film with one of its best running gags: How – and when – will he lose it? You can bet it will be funny – and gross, which pretty much sums up the film.
(“Hot Tub Time Machine” contains sex, nudity, foul language, drugs and booze. Ah, the ’80s.)
Source: bostonherald.com
