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Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Director: Steve Pink

Time Out rating

Average user rating

18 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

It’s a time-honoured tradition among ageing rock stars with dwindling audiences to go back to the time that made them famous: nostalgia sells.

Now John Cusack is applying the same shtick to movies: having tried his luck as both action hero and romantic lead, with ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’, Cusack returns to the slapdash, high concept ’80s comedies that made him famous. And concepts don’t come much higher than this: following a mysterious incident with an outdoor Jacuzzi and a can of nuclear-powered Russian energy drink, Adam (Cusack) and his three friends find themselves rocketed into the past, forced to relive the craziest night of their teenage lives before they can find a way back to the good old twenty-first century.

‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ conforms a little too closely to the post-‘The Hangover’ comedy template of a gang of drunk middle-aged losers with loud voices, bad attitudes and dubious ideas about women. But where this film scores over ‘The Hangover’ is in the script, which replaces brash overconfidence with a looser narrative structure and a shaggier, more playful sense of humour.
It also does a great job of recreating the style and content of the ’80s comedies it so lovingly pastiches, namely girls with big hair, pounding synth music and skisuit-wearing preppy douchebag villains. Giving his most charming performance in years, Cusack keeps the film sweet-natured when his more outrageous co-star Rob Corddry threatens to go overboard. No masterpiece, perhaps, but ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ is post-pub perfection.

Author: Tom Huddleston

Time Out London Issue 2072: 13-19 May, 2010

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User reviews of this film

Paul said...

Posted on Feb 20 2011 22:32 I haven't seen this film & after reading all the comments above I have decided not to spend £1.99 on eBay to get it. Thanks for saving me money:)

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Thomas Noctor said...

Posted on Oct 20 2010 10:26 Awful 'comedy'. Plot is crap, no funny men at all in it. How the guy loses his arm is just thick! So boring aswel! Get Death at a funeral or The Hangover instead!

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greig said...

Posted on May 30 2010 11:32 utterly great film , my girlfriend siobhan donnelly reccomended it and i thot it was a total sucess , both of us were in stitches!! a must see

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RN said...

Posted on May 19 2010 14:17 looks good..........

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Lawfy said...

Posted on May 15 2010 10:08 Yes, of course it's puerile and hugely vulgar. It's also cleverly-scripted and very, very funny. I msg admit to liking this new genre of teen comedies with thirty/ forty-something characters.

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ggm said...

Posted on May 12 2010 23:35 i dont think i laughed more then once ,if you want a cracking laugh four lions is for you

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scrumpyjack said...

Posted on May 11 2010 18:10 it's a rude Bill & Ted. if you dont like the sound of that, avoid. if you do, you're in for a good dollop of happy-crappy fun.

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kuara said...

Posted on May 11 2010 10:27 sarah george ur comment made me laurgh at the start lol

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Dozy John said...

Posted on May 10 2010 19:18 I havnt seen this film yet either, I'd like to but I dont think I've got time. If i had seen it i think i would say it was good. Hope that helps?

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DS said...

Posted on May 10 2010 12:10 Funniest film i have ever seen!!! I laughed so hard I almost choked. Its school boy humour for adults. This is not a serious film at all, it is utterly stupid, but I lvoed it. Dont take it too seriously, or it wont be funny. I mean, just the title of the film sounds utterly stupid and horrendous, but thats part of its incredibly cheesy charm.
Must see, and i would definately see it again and again!

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DS said...

Posted on May 10 2010 12:10 Funniest film i have ever seen!!! I laughed so hard I almost choked. Its school boy humour for adults. This is not a serious film at all, it is utterly stupid, but I lvoed it. Dont take it too seriously, or it wont be funny. I mean, just the title of the film sounds utterly stupid and horrendous, but thats part of its incredibly cheesy charm.
Must see, and i would definately see it again and again!

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sarah george said...

Posted on May 09 2010 19:01 This is the most revolting film I have ever seen. I suppossed I shouldn't be surprised by now that TO considers this totally humourless, pathetic, chringing turd fest is worthy of 3 stars! This film is WITHOUT HUMOUR. I am never seen an actor look more uncomfortable than Cusack does in this sad pastiche of his early career. Aside from its complete lack of humour, and dispite what this incomprehensible review states nothing akin to The Hangover, this film is wall to wall, furious, loathing mysogyny. But, as has become disappointingly apparent, the film critics of TO that guys banging 'chicks' is freeking hilarious! Get an adult on your staff.

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usman latif khawaja said...

Posted on May 09 2010 00:54 evie -
i think that just about sums this up -a bizarre mix of sex and drug cracked with the time genre movie that is becoming as predictable now as the comic book movies -
it is sad to see cusack playing a role where the funniest joke is him getting stabbed around the eye with a plastic fork -
as for the movie it was just as plastic and the male oral sex sequence was anything but truly american in essence -

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Evie said...

Posted on May 07 2010 17:26 This vision of the eighties is probably
more recognisable to an american audience. It lacks the charm of 17 again and succeeds in being even more puerile than the hangover. At least a couple of laugh out loud moments though. And like Robert Downey jr, cusack is one of those actors that everybody loves surely?

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KICK ASS said...

Posted on May 07 2010 12:11 Haven't even seen it, but WOO!!! it's a good film XD

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