The first Hot Tub Time Machine was a good movie. Three friends – Adam (John Cusack), Lou (Rob
Corddry) and Nick (Craig Robinson) – along with Adam’s nephew Jacob (Clark
Duke) are magically transported back to 1986.
Unlike other time travel movies like Back to the Future, there is no
danger of them running into their 1986 selves.
When they look in a mirror they see the young versions of themselves,
except for Jacob who wasn’t born yet.
The movie was funny and the filmmakers knew the premise was
ridiculous. By the end of the movie,
they had all improved their lives. Lou would
use his knowledge of the future to invent Lougle (instead of Google) and become
the father of the internet, and Nick became a successful musician.
In the sequel, Lougle isn’t doing well and everyone hates
Lou. Nick became successful by recording
hit songs himself before the original artist has a chance to record it. We see him filming the video for Stay (I
Missed You) and he runs into Lisa Loeb, who is working as the cat
wrangler. Lou’s story makes sense, since
he stayed behind in 1986 at the end of the last movie. But Nick went back to 2010, so I don’t
understand how he could have the future knowledge to write and record all these
songs. Not to mention that Stay was
recorded in 1994, not 2015.
But details like that aren’t important in a movie like
this. What is important is the laughs, and
there are none in this movie. I chuckled
here and there, but this movie really isn’t funny. The only funny moments are things they repeat
from the first movie, like when Nick and Lou sing about Jacob being a
nerd.
The plot concerns someone coming back from the future and
shooting Lou. Nick and Jacob drag him
into the hot tub intending to go back in time to prevent him being shot. Instead, they end up in 2025 where Jacob is
rich, bald and married to the hot girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day in
2015. She also hasn’t aged a day in 10
years, but whatever. Lou is now a
homeless drunk and Nick has become a joke.
It seems he recorded an original song that nobody liked and his career
never recovered.
Jacob figured out that someone from the future went back to
2015 to kill Lou, so now they have to figure out who that is and stop
them. Since the hot tub is the only form
of time travel, it would seem like a good idea to stay near the hot tub and
make sure nobody else uses it, but that doesn’t occur to them. They decide to find Adam, thinking he might
be the killer.
They don’t find Adam – John Cusack either wanted too much
money or he got a look at the script – but they do find Adam’s son, Adam Jr.
(Adam Scott). They arrive just in time
for Lou to get Adam into drugs and mess up his wedding. I wonder who the killer turns out to be?
The filmmakers throw a lot of futuristic ideas in this
movie, like holographic phones and really cool transparent iPad things. There are smart cars that drive themselves
and have personalities, and the most popular game show involves contestants
being forced to do humiliating things to themselves and other people. None of these things are written with any wit
or humor. It’s like the screenwriter had
a bunch of ideas but didn’t bother to develop them in any way.
I’ve gone on far too long about this stupid movie. It might be worth watching on Netflix one day
if you can’t find anything else to watch, but don’t waste money on this movie.
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