Hot Tub Time Machine 2010
This is a movie I had to wait on for a while because Netflix didn’t make it available until it was on video for a few weeks. I was glad to be able to get it right before I decided to cancel Netflix for a little while. I knew it was another low-brow buddy movie, like last year’s The Hangover, only with time travel back to the 80’s involved. I guess this is a sign that Hollywood writers are all about my age, because they keep writing things I can identify with. Good for them!
While this movie never shies away from being a disgusting party movie, it is also smarter and funnier than most, and in that way similar to The Hangover which was actually pretty decent. There are some great scenes, including a catheter scene where Rob Corddry outdoes Steve Carrell’s chest waxing scene from The 40 Year Old Virgin. I read later that that scene was added in later on. There is also humor from the contrast between the 80’s and today along with how goofy people look when they were younger. But there is also some philosophical stuff going on about not just the butterfly effect (how easy it is to change some things, but so hard to change fate itself), but if you had your life to live over, would you change anything? How could 25 years of living not prepare you to make better choices than you made as a 17 year old kid?
The movie is crude, but if you don’t mind that kind of thing, it is still fun to watch.
Written: 21 Aug 2010