Movie review: Hot Tub Time Machine

Concerned parents: Here are the lessons your teenage son or daughter stands to learn from watching this film.

It's a good thing the writers of Hot Tub Time Machine (HTTM) have such good ears for comedic dialog -- and it's fortunate that novice feature director Steve Pink has a great sense of comic timing. Because without these virtues, their movie would be brain dead on arrival.

Instead, HTTM takes its rightful place among the canon of unpretentious, amusingly raunchy buddy comedies populated with underachievers who decide that friendship is more important to them than succeeding in work, romance, or anything else. (It's no coincidence that Wild Hogs is referenced by one of the film's characters.)

It's also one of those rare movies whose very title serves to sum up the story line with effortless aplomb.

John Cusack (who starred in two films scripted by Pink: High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank) stars as Adam, an insurance salesman whose girlfriend has just left him, removing most of the contents of their shared apartment while he's away at the office. Adam is sad.

"Pass the Chernobly."

One of the things Adam's girlfriend neglected to take was Adam's nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke), who -- from the sanctity of his basement computer room hangout -- didn't even notice her departure. (He was too busy serving out his virtual prison term in Second Life.) Jacob is self-absorbed and nerdy. And defensive, as all virginal self-absorbed nerdy guys tend to be.

Meanwhile, Nick (The Office's Craig Robinson) is hard at work at his place of employment, 'Sup Dawg, where he handles (literally) difficult doggie poop-chute extractions. (Thank God for rubber gloves.) Nick is feeling under-appreciated.

Nick has just gotten word that their wild-and-crazy pal Lou (Rob Corddry) may have attempted to kill himself; he's in the hospital recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Adam, Jacob, and Nick hasten hospital-ward to attend Lou's bedside. (Where, presuming him to be unconscious, they recite a litany of quite plausible reasons that he might have attempted suicide. Surprise: he's awake.) Lou is depressed.

You're disgusting. Let's make like snowshoe hares."

So, Lou's old buds Adam and Nick -- with a reluctant Jacob in tow -- decide to take Lou on a vacation to the once-trendy ski resort which served as the launch site of many of their youthful, party-hearty escapades.

The resort, when they arrive, has taken on the semblance of a ghost town; actual OLD people (with - *GASP!* - gray hair!) populate the lobby, while their bellperson is a luggage-abusing one-armed man with a serious 'tude. After Lou (whose tune this is to call, after all) fails miserably in his attempt to book a room service hooker, the action proceeds (and none too soon) to the titular soaking receptacle.

When a can of Russian-import energy beverage ("Chernobly") shorts out the circuitry, the four guys are transported back to 1986. But not before binge-drinking Lou has unleashed the most energetic high-velocity vomit stream since Linda Blair's pea soup performance in The Exorcist.

"Is that Jessie's girl?"

The process of these guys coming to grips with their time-traveling reality provides for some amusing sight (and sound) gags -- particularly to those of us who remember the '80's, in all their vainglorious glory. Soon they've deduced that they are actually revisiting an occasion from their collective pasts. (Except for Jacob, who was not even -- quite -- born at this point.)

A hot tub repairman (Chevy Chase) makes intermittent unannounced appearances, dropping cryptic references to their predicament; one thing he makes particularly clear is that they should not do anything to change the course of events that occurred when they were here/now the first time.

And thus the well-known strictures of the Butterfly Effect lead the fellows to resolve to do it all again, just as they did it before -- even if some of it will prove to be painful. (Which it will.)

An ongoing gag is the vintage '86 incarnation of their confrontational bellhop, Phil (Crispin Glover), now (then) with both arms fully attached. Just how will his limb become disarticulated? Might the severing occur as he's hurling his chainsaw in the air while carving ice statuary? Or perhaps it'll rip clean off when his arm becomes stuck in the elevator door. Oh, the gruesome anticipation!

Wild antics involving scantily-clad and half-naked women are juxtaposed against altercations with antagonistic blond-haired ski patrol nazis, but it's really all just an excuse to revel in the seeming ridiculousness of the period, when cell phones were the size of toaster ovens and the internet -- like Jacob -- hadn't even been conceived of.

A blast-from-the-future highlight occurs when Nick -- who performed at a local nightclub back in the day -- mounts the stage for a repeat (?) performance. He warms up the crowd with a rousing rendition of Jessie's Girl, then rocks the house with hip hop. And the butterfly effect be damned.

If you're a concerned parent, here are the lessons your teenage son or daughter stands to learn from watching Hot Tub Time Machine:

How to use the f-word in (nearly) every sentence
Dog poop removal can be messy
Catheter removal can be messy
Peeing while distracted by one's own reflection in the bathroom mirror can be messy
Women were really, really easy back in the '80s. (At least at ski resorts.)

If there's a moral to be derived from the timestream-altering dénouement of the piece, it's that having lots of money will make you happy.

Which is kind of a refreshing, politically-incorrect take on things. Perhaps because it's something we struggling underachievers have long suspected.

IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING: "A taxidermist is stuffing my mother." - Jacob

SKI RESORT PICKUP LINE: " I got hit by a truck. Trying to save a baby deer." - Lou

AND GETS AWAY WITH IT?: "Nobody f**ks my mother in the past!" - Jacob, outraged