Oh, Yeah, Poison!

Nostalgia for the time of the prior generation is something that ever era goes through. We had Happy Days looking back to the 1950s from the 1970s and 1980s, and then Back to the Future as well. Hell, there was A Christmas Story as well. Then moving forward, it seems like we've swapped nostalgia for the 1950s for nostalgia for the 1980s (although Dazed and Confused, among others, sated the 1970s nostalgia need). We're still getting people looking back at the 1980s and saying, "man, weren't those times great?" Well, no, not really. Fashions are fun to look back on, and the music was pretty decent, but going back to your past is never as good as you remember it.

But still, if you could, what would you do differently? Would you try and do everything exactly the same to maintain the life you know, or would you try and make changes so you could improve your future? Maybe have a better job, or to be with your soulmate, or just not be a drunken, suicidal wretch. That's the scenario set up by 2010's Hot Tub Time Machine, a raunchy comedy dressed up with nostalgia vibes. It has the fashions, the music, the radical hair, along side a star who came up during the 1980s (John Cusack). But it also has a comedic take on the butterfly effect, the idea that your changes in the past can move around your whole life in the future. It's dumb, and silly, but also a lot of fun in a laid back, don't get caught up in the details kind of way.

Starting in the present, we meet three friends -- Adam Yates (Cusack), Lou Dorchen (Rob Corddry), and Nick Webber-Agnew (Craig Robinson) -- who used to be best buddies back in the day but have grown apart in the years since. Adam just broke up with his girlfriend, leaving him with an empty house occupied by just himself and his basement-dwelling nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke). Nick wanted to be a famous musician but that didn't pan out, so now he works at a dog grooming business (not his own) while his wife, Courtney (Kellee Stewart), cheats on him behind his back. And Lou still hasn't gotten past the old days when he used to be called "Violator" and he and his buddies would go out and get trashed every night.

When Lou falls asleep at the wheel in his garage, his buddies take it as a suicide attempt. They decide, to cheer him up, they'll all pack up into a car (all four of them, including the nephew) and head to the old sky lodge where the guys used to party every year. However, when they arrive the lodge is in disrepair and the whole weekend seems like a bust. But once the hot tub in their room gets fixed, the guys hang out in the water for a grand night of drunken fun. When they wake, though, they discover that somehow they've traveled back in time to the 1980s and they all, as their younger selves (well, except for Jacob) have a chance to redo choices they made, fix mistakes of their past, ti maybe finally get on the path they were destined for, all thanks to the power of a hot tub time machine.

Let's be clear: Hot Tub Time Machine is a seriously goofy movie. The whole concept is clearly meant to act as a parody of other time travel comedies from the 1980s. Marty McFly traveled through time in a Delorean (which Back to the Future rightly mocked) and Bill and Ted used a phone booth (that, clearly, was not a police box, no sir). So, why not a hot tub, then? It's it weirder, any sillier? No, not really. It works because the film says, "hey, this is how we did it, now lets enjoy the ride," and that's all that matters.

Once the film commits to the bit it does have a lot of fun with it. There are the obvious, easy jokes the film makes early, commenting on the 1980s setting, the fashion, the hair (and the blackness of Michael Jackson). And then it settles into a proper, raunchy comedy vibe, having fun with drinking and drugs, sex with women, and all the antics you'd expect dude to get up to if given a free weekend to do whatever they wanted. The time travel gimmick is there to revel in the 1980s in a nostalgia-filled party.

In fairness, it does pull this off. All of the nostalgia vibes come through via the soundtrack, which is packed full of solid 1980s needle drops. Many of them are obvious choices -- "Modern Love", "Push It", "Jessie's Girl" -- but there are some pretty solid lesser tracks that I appreciated having in the film. "Save It for Later", for example, is a song I know from covers more than the original, but the original version from The Beat made the cut, and it's a solid choice both for the setting and the scene it's used in. The obvious choices are used to show the generic 1980s party setting, and they work, but the inspired choices are used to actually punctuate scenes and show care and thoughtfulness that makes the film even better.

The casting for this film is really what makes the movie sing, though. Cusack is here because he was a 1980s teen actor, sure, so he adds that nostalgia cred. But his character, Adam, is the kind of sad-sack lead that Cusack can play so well. It's the prefect casting choice for this film, and he pulls of Adam's neurotic time travel fears perfectly. Corddry gets to play the wild party animal heel, and it's a character the comedian can play perfectly. And Robinson gets to both be the sensitive romantic, pinning for the wife he technically hasn't met yet in the 1980s, while also showing up his musical chops. With this trio in the lead, the film fires perfectly.

It also helps that it has a lot of solid humor scattered through the film. With the three leads any decent joke can be played for perfect laughs. But there are a lot of good lines, funny reactions, and well played pratfalls that make you laugh constantly. This is a goofy movie, but it knows it's goofy film, so it commits to the bit, going for whatever laugh it can in every scene. It's a hilarious film that hooks you in and makes you laugh constantly, which is all you really want in a comedy, especially one like this.

If there's a flaw with the film at all it's that the female characters don't really get any development at all. This is a male wish fulfillment fantasy, through and through, so each of the guys travel to the past and get what they want -- Adam finds love with a manic pixie dream girl (played by Lizzy Caplan), Lou ends up banging Adam's sister (played by Collette Wolfe), and Nick ends up finding his musical groove, and yelling at the 9-year old that would eventually become his wife -- but what do the women get? Not much of anything. No character grown, no really back story, no dynamic development. They each are there to give the men something they want and, well, that's it.

Now, in the case of Caplan she at least elevates her character, April, through sheer charisma. She's a great actress (who absolutely was also killing it over on the little scene but much beloved Party Down) but, frankly, Alice was beneath her talents. When I saw Caplan come on screen I expected a lot from her considering how good she is as an actress. Her character one gets a couple of scenes, though, and then somehow she ends up with Adam in the future? We needed more time, more development, for that to really work.

Still, the film is a lot of fun. If all you want is a goofy hang out comedy with 1980s nostalgia vibes, Hot Tub Time Machine has what you need. It certainly struck a chord with audiences, raking in over $100 Mil at the Box Office. That was enough to warrant a sequel (that no one liked, mind you) and a devoted following to this film. It's dumb, but charming, and sometimes that's all you want.