Hot Tub Time Machine a Fun, Dopey Comedy

Back in January, I was invited to attend an early screening of a little film called Hot Tub Time Machine. It was a rough cut and it was, well, a little rough. The editing needed to be tighter and a few side story issues needed to be resolved. Now it has been completed and the finished product is, well, still a little rough. It's a shoddily structured, messily interpreted hour and a half trip through an unoriginal screenplay reminiscent of dozens of other time traveling films that simply replaces whatever time traveling device they used with a hot tub. Still, its goofy nature and fun, unabashed ridiculousness are hard to deny.

The story, as irrelevant as it may be, can be summarized in one sentence. After Lou, played by Rob Corddry, tries to kill himself, his friends Adam, Nick and Jacob, played by John Cusack, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke, travel to their old vacation spot, a ski resort in the mountains, where they are transported back to the 80’s via hot tub and must travel in the same footsteps they did all those years ago, lest they disrupt the past and change the future for the worse.

Much like Snakes on a Plane or the more recent Ninja Assassin, Hot Tub Time Machine is a movie most will want to see based on the delightfully absurd title alone. Those people will not be disappointed. Like a good spoof movie, the film never stops with the jokes. It never bothers with heart or meaning or character development. It simply provides a constant string of gags that allow the four actors to play off each other.

Unfortunately, for every hilarious joke, there was one that fell flatter than an anorexic supermodel, including disgusting bodily fluid jokes that even the most juvenile of viewers will find degrading. Blood, urine, vomit, you name it, this movie has it. In the first 20 minutes alone, you get all of the above and then some, bringing to mind a scene where Nick digs out keys from the anus of an animal and throws them at someone. This type of lowbrow humor is to be expected, but that doesn't make it funny.

It's during the more perceptive scenes that Hot Tub Time Machine really shines. It knows what it is—over-the-top, tongue in cheek and very silly—and it takes its 80’s setting and capitalizes on it. Cusack, known for his seminal roles in 80’s films like Say Anything, is used to the fullest and the film puts him in situations that echo movies of that era, even going so far as to duplicate one of the most famous shots from Sixteen Candles, a film which he played a minor role in.

In a way, Hot Tub Time Machine is kind of smart in its stupidity. There is nothing going on behind the camera, but the comedic chemistry of the four actors is good and the witty script prove some thought went into it. It’s ironic, really. The film has brains, but you’ll have to turn yours off to enjoy it.

Hot Tub Time Machine receives 3/5

Interview with Clark Duke, Star of Hot Tub Time Machine

Starring alongside best friend Michael Cera in the Internet series Clark and Michael is only the beginning of Clark Duke’s story. With the underappreciated Sex Drive and hit television show Greek under his belt, not to mention the highly anticipated film Kick Ass on the horizon, Duke is proving himself as one of the most promising up and coming actors in Hollywood. I recently had a chance to chat with Duke about his new movie Hot Tub Time Machine and the difference between television and film.

What attracted you to the Hot Tub Time Machine script?

It was funny. I got involved with it because the guys who wrote Sex Drive had written the draft of Hot Tub and wanted me to play this part and I just said yeah because I really love those guys. They ended up not directing it, but I still stayed on because there was Corddry, Craig and then Cusack. I think Cusack being in it makes it really weird and meta because he’s such an 80’s icon himself. And in the movie, these guys go back to the 80’s and the whole thing seems like it’s coming out of him a little bit which is cool.

Since you mentioned your co-stars, after seeing the movie it seems like John Cusack is being billed to sell the movie.

John is sort of the straight man to some extent. He’s still the lead in the film, but Corddry has the wild character like the one I had in Sex Drive, the really fun one to play. So Johnny’s stuff is a little more understated, but he’s great. It was just really cool working with him because High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank are two of my favorite movies. And the guy who directed Hot Tub wrote those. Working with all of those guys was pretty amazing. Chevy Chase was my highlight because he’s my hero. All of our scenes were together pretty much and he was next to me at the hotel, so every night he would come knock on my door, call me and mumble things, so we’d go eat dinner and get drunk every night. It was the best week of my life. It was pretty surreal.

Would you like to continue doing comedy or break away and do more serious roles?

I don’t know. I like comedies. I guess if there was a really dramatic part that I thought I could do something interesting with or somebody asked me to do, but I don’t know, I like working on comedies for the most part because I mainly watch comedies.

Do you ever watch yourself? Is it weird seeing yourself onscreen?

The first time I saw Sex Drive in the theater, I had to leave. It was just unsettling. I couldn’t talk to anybody afterwards. I’m kind of used to it now, but at first it’s pretty jarring.

You’ve also done a lot of work on television, on the show Greek. I know this is a question you’ve heard a thousand times, but do you prefer the slower pace of film or the faster pace of television?

Film for sure. TV is brutal man. You’re going through eight pages a day and it’s rough. I mean it’s not rough, but compared to shooting a movie where you’re shooting one page a day, TV’s pace is just so much different.

So on average, how many takes does it take to get something done in movies and TV?

On TV you’re doing one or two takes because there’s just no time. On movies you can take all the time you want more or less because you’re shooting a page or two a day compared to six to eight pages, so it’s pretty bananas.

Besides Kick Ass, do you have any other films lined up right now?

I have this movie with Eddie Murphy called A Thousand Words that I think comes out at the end of this year.

Can you give us any details on that?

Eddie gets a curse put on him, so he only has a thousand words left to say before he dies and I play his assistant.

That’s a cool premise. It sounds better than Imagine That.

Let’s hope so. [Laughs] I didn’t see that one, but it didn’t do very well. He needs a hit.