Hot Tub Time Machine

If you are like me, then you love movies like The Karate Kid, Back to the Future, and Red Dawn. The writers for Hot Tub Time Machine took the scripts from all three movies and threw them in a blender...out came the best comedy since The Hangover. No, there aren’t Russians hopping into a time traveling Delorean to fight Cobra Kai’s in the All Valley Tournament (Although the actual plot isn’t that far off). This is a guy comedy that reunites old friends that have grown apart over the years. Adam (John Cusack) just got dumped by his live in girlfriend. Although he got top billing, I feel that Cusack’s presence is almost an homage to 80‘s movies all together, which is really the main theme of the movie. Nick (Craig Robinson)...(the warehouse supervisor from The Office) is an unhappy, shell of a man, that is holding on for dear life to a marriage, even though his wife cheated on him. Lou (Rob Corddry) is the supreme comic relief throughout the movie. All the actors carry their weight, but the MVP is without a doubt Lou. Lou, as Nick so eloquently puts it “Is that asshole at the party, but he’s our asshole”. Everyone has a friend like Lou. A friend that is just so callous and abrasive that you don’t know why the hell you are friends with him in the first place, then you remember...he is more loyal than your precious golden retriever could ever be. Rounding out the fearsome foursome is Jacob (Clark Duke). Jacob is Cusack’s 20 year old nephew who lives in a world of online gaming and texting. A total nerd that has most likely never had the pleasure of being inside a woman’s vagina.

If Zach Galifianakis stole the show in The Hangover, Rob Corddry definitely topped Zach with his performance in Hot Tub. Rob Stole every scene including my favorite, I’ll entitle “The Bathroom Blow Job”. Rob’s character “Lou” gets the bright idea to gamble on football games since he knows all their outcomes. After racking up a sizable pot of winnings he is tempted with a double or nothing bet with one of the other bar patrons, who is none other than Billy Zabka. You might remember Billy Zabka from his role as Johnny Lawrence, in a little movie called The Karate Kid. Lou is into Zabka’s character for a lot of money and begins to gloat. In addition to a great deal of money Lou Bets Zabka’s character for a blow job from his wife if he wins the next bet. As Zabka looks to his wife and contemplates the bet, Lou whispers to Zabka’s wife “I’m really great at getting head”. They agree to the bet. Lou needs John Elway to throw a touchdown pass with 37 seconds remaining. If Lou wins, he gets a lot of money and a classy blow job from one of the girls from Wedding Crashers (One of the chicks in the “falling on the bed” montage...she’s the one with the biggest tits). If Lou loses, he gives up ALL of his winnings and has to give his friend Nick a blow job. Since the guys have all gone back in time, they have created a rift in the time-space continuom, and Elway’s pass is dropped. After trying to welch on the blow job portion of the bet, Zabka pulls out a gun and makes them go into the bathroom. Our duo finds themselves in the bar’s bathroom with what seems like 100 onlookers and Lou is on his knees. They both begin to cry and Lou pulls Nick’s shirt up to reveal his penis. What happens next is beyond funny. Lou looks up as he is crying from the forced rape and tells Nick “Wow, good for you man”, obviously impressed by Nick’s “size”. As he leans forward to begin, he comments “It’s just so...Black”, at which point Nick passes out. We are all saved from the Deliverance-Like moment that was about to ensue.

Nick awakes to find that Zabka wasn’t really going to make them do it. The plot moves along when the elitist “Ski Patrol” guys beat up Lou and take his backpack. the backpack has the fuel for the time machine...RUSSIAN RED BULL. Now in 2010 Russian Red bull can be found in any corner store, but in 1986 it’s a little hard to come by. The Ski Patrol guys suspect our heroes are Russian spies and begin to form plans to launch a counter offensive. A side plot that is going on the whole time, is a boring, very forced love story between Cusack’s character and a Rolling Stone reporter played by Lizzy Caplan from the hit show “Party Down” (she is very hot by the way). The whole romance is lame and is only there to give the big star more screen time. To avoid ruining the movie for all the readers, I will save a majority of the jokes for your viewing pleasure.

The biggest complaint that I have heard about the movie is that the ending was so fantastical that it wasn’t believable. If a Hot Tub turning into a time machine isn’t unbelievable enough for you, then I guess you just can’t suspend disbelief and have fun for an hour and forty minutes, and I don’t want to know you. I think they ended the movie quite well. Who hasn’t dreamed about going back in time and buying stock in Google and Microsoft...etc? The writers went one better than that. Lou stayed back in time while his friends went back to the future (he he). He stayed behind and wrote songs and became a famous rock star (he just wrote Mötley Crüe songs before they could). When he was done partying, he decided to invent “Lougle”, beating out the guys before they could invent Google. Once Cusack and the other’s returned back to their proper time, they found that their terrible, abrasive, friend Lou had taken care of all of them. He made them all millionaires, got Cusack together with the Rolling Stone reporter (who is very hot by the way), and made it so Nick’s wife never cheated. The only place that you’ll find a better happy ending is in an Asian spa, and I’m talking from personal experience. To close this blog out, I’ll leave you with yet another carrot to entice you to the theatre to see this very funny movie.

While discussing ideas to change the future:
Nick: “We can prevent Miley Cyrus!”
Lou: “Prevent her from what?”
Nick: “Just prevent her.”