Hot Tub Time Machine Review

By: Robert Acosta

Plot: Four old friends, who went down different paths in life, spend one last wild weekend together which turns out to be a wild trip to the past.

Review: Now I want to note this before I get into the review. I was gonna give a lot of praise to this movie after watching and enjoying this movie, but it just so happened that I watched the movie 17 Again which, believe it or not, changed my overall view of Hot Tub Time Machine. I'll get into that later.

For starters, Hot Tub Time Machine is exactly what the title entails. The 4 characters played by John Cusack, Clark Duke, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry spend a weekend together where they used to have their best memories. Now, this place has a hot tub which they all decide to use. Of course, it turns out to be a time machine and sends them back into 1986.

Hot Tub Time Machine is pretty hilarious for mostly the whole way through. Craig Robinson is a hilarious comedian and continues to provide laugh out loud moments in all the comedies he's in, though I wouldn't say he carried this movie as he did in his others. Cusack, Corddry and Duke provide some pretty funny moments as well but I would have to say Robinson's funny moments stick more with me. Chevy Chase makes a fun cameo, having a lot of back and forths between the characters.

Even with this being a comedy, it offers up a good personal question. If you had a chance to change your past, would you? As the movie progresses, you see the characters struggle with what happened in the past and maybe trying to change it. It makes the movie a bit deeper than maybe intended, but it still brings up a valid point.

Also, the bond between the characters is good, you get to see how their relationship progresses from beginning to end, all their memories come to life including one that gets left out, possibly for a sequel or an extra feature on the dvd, depending on how good the movie does in the box office.

Another strength to the movie was the soundtrack during the movie, which something I hardly find as a strength. Usually the songs played during movies are alright, just fit in with whats going on in the movie. But because most of this movie takes place in the 80's, the soundtrack is gonna have you singing along and even bring back memories for you, if you were born in the 80's or like 80's music that is.

There was also a great moral to the story, friendship. Through thick and thin and hot tub time machines, friends stick together and help each other out. Thats definitely something I can get behind.

Now I want to get to the reason why the movie 17 Again changed my overall view of Hot Tub Time Machine. As I was watching 17 Again this morning, I realized that these two movies follow a similar formula. They both start out with people living not so great lives, reflecting on the past, some spiritual being(old man or hot tub) sends them back into the past, they get a chance to fix things or keep things the same, they fix things with some bumps in the road and everyone lives happily ever after. Now I'm not saying that these movies are exactly the same, Hot Tub Time Machine is funnier and overall better than 17 Again but they're so similar that Hot Tub Time Machine really doesn't offer anything new. Just funnier moments.

Overall, Hot Tub Time Machine is still a great time at the movies, even with the prices being raised recently over the weekend. Even with the comparison to 17 Again, this movie has a lot of laugh out loud moments and can be appreciated on it's own.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.