Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Sure the title is weird, but it flows off the tongue much better than Therapy Spa Time Machine.

Yes, Sci-Fi Saturdays is going there! While many may see Hot Tub Time Machine as a stupid comedy, it is a film that plays fast and loose with the rules of time travel by breaking conventions and providing quite a number of laughs in the process. It takes a comedy formula that was made popular in the 2000s and wraps it in and around the sci-fi trope of traveling into one’s past, provoking just a little heart for its characters as well.

First Impressions

Four friends have a wild party in a hot tub and wake up the next morning having been transported back to 1986. They realize when they enter the ski lodge that everyone is wearing neon clothing and leg warmers and people have on Miami Vice shirts, wearing Jheri curl, and are using Walkmans. One sees his mom, as other characters try their hand at dating. If it’s not obvious by the title of the film, one character looks into the camera and says it must have been a Hot Tub Time Machine.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

Three middle-aged friends who have grown apart are reunited when one of them is admitted to the hospital after a perceived suicide attempt. Lou (Rob Corddry) says it was just an accident, but the doctor asks Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson) to do something fun with him to take his mind off of the event. The three decide to go to Kodiak Valley for a weekend of skiing, bringing along Adam’s 25-year-old nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke), who lives in his basement. The three hope to recapture some of the fun times of their youth, but when they arrive the resort is deteriorated and not how they remember it.

Lou tries to act like he’s 18 again and convinces everyone to party in the hot tub. They spill an energy drink into the controls which, along with a heavy amount of booze and drugs, leads to a psychedelic event and time travel. They awaken in 1986, not realizing it at first, and discover that to everyone else they look like their younger bodies–except Jacob who looks the same because he hadn’t been born yet. It is their trip to Kodiak Valley that they all remember, where Adam broke up with Jenny (Lyndsy Fonseca), Lou got his butt kicked by Blaine (Sebastian Stan) and the ski patrol guys (twice!), and Nick performed with his band Chocolate Lipstick. Also on the trip is Adam’s sister, Kelly (Collette Wolfe) who is Jacob’s mom and a real party girl.

A mysterious hot tub repairman (Chevy Chase) reveals some cryptic clues to the gang about not changing the future, and making sure everything occurred as it had in the original timeline before disappearing. To this end, Nick must have sex with one of his groupies, which makes him cry remembering that his present-day wife had cheated on him. Adam must go through with his breakup with Jenny–who he believes is his “great white buffalo,” the girl who got away. And Lou must continue to get beat up, while Jacob tries to figure out a way back. Both Nick and Lou go through with their parts, but Adam reconsiders staying with Jenny, which upsets the others.

The repairman tells Jacob that they need to recreate the events that led to the time travel, which means getting the last can of energy drink from Lou’s backpack. Unfortunately, it was stolen by Blaine, who sees the weird variety of future items and believes the time travelers are actually Russian spies, not teenage skiers. Jacob begins fritzing out of reality, being in danger of not ever having existed the longer they stay. Lou realizes that time can be changed after betting on a football game that he remembers. Adam hooks up with a music journalist, April (Lizzy Caplan), while Nick decides to perform “Let’s Get It Started” by the Black Eyed Peas.

Jacob finds both Adam and Nick, but when they reach Lou, he is having sex with Adam’s sister Kelly with everyone realizes that Lou is Jacob’s dad. They allow him to finish, and all four of them go to the ski patrol shack to retrieve the energy drink. Lou fights Blaine (finally) before they race back to the hot tub. Lou decides to stay behind, admitting that he really was suicidal and that he’s a better person in the past. Adam says he will stay too, but Lou forces him back into the hot tub. Back in the present, Adam, Nick, and Jacob find a DVD recording from Lou.

Lou is now a multi-millionaire, having exploited his knowledge of the future to create Lougle, an internet search engine. He is married to Kelly and has helped his friends in their lives as well. He sends messages to each of them telling them new addresses to go to. Adam finds that he’s married to April now. Nick is the owner of Webber Studios, a music studio. They all go over to Lou’s house to celebrate their friendship and Lou reveals one final change: he was the lead singer in the band Mötley Lüe. Their big hit “Home Sweet Home” plays over the end credits.

“One little change has a ripple effect and it affects everything else. Like a butterfly floats its wings and Tokyo explodes or there’s a tsunami, in like, you know, somewhere.” – Adam

History in the Making

The time travel film may be the most versatile subgenre of science-fiction, as shown with Hot Tub Time Machine. It uses the group-comedy template, a style made popular in the 2000s by films such as Adam McKay’s Anchorman and Talladega Nights, Judd Apatow’s The 40 Year Old Virgin, and Rawson Marshall Thurber’s Dodgeball. Each film features several comedic talents, working their way through a relatively thin plot, while utilizing an improvisational approach that yields multiple takes (sometimes enough to craft an entirely separate movie around). This film was directed by Steve Pink on his second directorial outing. He had previously written Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity, two John Cusack vehicles from the late 90s. He reteams with Cusack while giving co-starring roles to Craig Robinson and Rob Coddrey, two comedians who had small to midsize roles in the previous decade. Rounding out the main cast was Clark Duke, a younger comedy actor in his fourth film. Each actor is given a chance on their own, and with the others, to provide comedic takes on the events and situations they encounter as they attempt to return to the present.

What is it about time travel films that give them the ability to transcend genres? Hot Tub Time Machine stands tall as a funny comedy that includes time travel. This also includes films that are out-and-out comedies like Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but also the Back to the Future trilogy, which has a lot of comedic elements. But comedy is only a small slice of time travel films. The majority of this type of film falls under adventure (as with the original The Time Machine) or more recently action-adventure (with The Terminator franchise, Star Trek films, and Timecop). Yet time travel also lends itself to many other genres too. Most recently Sci-Fi Saturdays looked at The Time Traveler’s Wife, a romantic film about someone stuck traveling through time, but audiences can find Somewhere in Time and Peggy Sue Got Married. There are also teenage adventure films like Clockstoppers. Hard science-fiction explorations of the reality of science, like Primer. And even several horror films that have utilized characters moving throughout time, like Timecrimes and Donnie Darko. This is because, unlike other sci-fi conceits, a time travel story is about the regret of characters or the wish to change something about the past–something that is elemental to all these other genres as well.

Genre-fication

The draw of Hot Tub Time Machine is its ability to not take the genre too seriously. It utilizes the common time travel tropes, playing them all for comedic effect. It also utilizes the tropes from some “classic” (I’m going to put that in quotes, since your mileage may vary) teen comedies from the 80s in an attempt to reference the time period the characters are visiting. Some of the references are even ingrained within past works of the actors in the film. Ever since Back to the Future, film audiences have been taught that if you were ever to go back in time, you should not change anything. Changing things can affect the future and put your life, and possibly the entire world, in jeopardy. For present-day characters going back, that’s the rule at least. If you meet a traveler from the future, like Michael Biehn from The Terminator, he’s probably here to change something because the future is messed up. Either way, there are rules. Hot Tub Time Machine begins by abiding by these rules as the characters vow to not change anything. But the past they revisit sucks so badly that they can’t help but make things better.

It starts small, with Adam deciding that he doesn’t want to break up with Jenny. Seemingly the timeline doesn’t agree with him and corrects itself by having her dump him instead. These types of “course corrections” are similar to the way that time travel worked in the show Lost. Characters could travel into the past and change things, but nature has a way of getting back on course. Like a river dammed up, it just overflows and continues on its way. Lou takes the whole thing to hilarious ends by taking everything he knows about the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s and capitalizes on them making himself rich. He invents a web-based search engine, parodying Google, and calling it Lougle. He became the lead singer for his favorite band, Mötley Crüe. He marries Kelly and gets all his friends on the right track. All this, seemingly without consequences. The traveler’s time jumps even manage to save Phil’s severed arm. Crispin Glover (Marty Mc Fly’s dad in Back to the Future) plays the one-armed bellhop in the present day. In the past, he has both arms, so the running gag becomes how he loses it. After narrowly missing getting it cut off ice sculpting with a chainsaw or ripped off in a malfunctioning elevator he loses it to a snow plow. But because the time travelers are there provoking Blaine and the members of the ski patrol, they’re on hand (haha) to take him to the hospital, saving his arm.

Besides references to time travel and the sci-fi genre, fans of ‘80s teen comedies may notice several references there as well. Since the lead is John Cusack and the group goes skiing, parallels to Better Off Dead are obvious. Director Steve Pink even has a background extra ski past Cusack talking to a buddy on a mobile phone, saying that his friend “owes him two dollars” from their bet. This references the paperboy who stalks Cusack in that film wanting his “two dollars.” But there was a slew of ski-themed films in the late 80s (are three films considered a slew?). These include Hot Dog The Movie, Ski School, and Ski Patrol. They dealt with the cool kids and the nerds, drinking, partying, and getting into trouble on snowy mountains. No time travel, but a lot of the elements that were seen with Blaine in this film.

Societal Commentary

Time travel films at their core are about coming to grips with the decisions of the past and learning to move on–or not, as is the case with Hot Tub Time Machine. The characters in this film are all still carrying around the angst and trauma of their teenage years. Adam believes that he has let the perfect woman get away from him. Jenny: The great white buffalo. He decides to fix this by staying with her. Isn’t that what anyone who had their heart broken would do? Nick feels sad that he never continued with his musical career. Instead, he expresses the anal glands of dogs day after day. He makes a splash in the film by performing a 2003 song by the Black Eyed Peas in 1986, really getting the crowd worked up. But this is the least of his trauma. He’s actually more damaged by the fact that his wife cheated on him. In a cringey, yet comedic moment, he calls his then 9-year-old wife and curses her out for sleeping around. Returning to the present day he realizes that the call traumatized her from ever having an extramarital affair, which is both good and bad news. Lou regrets his friends not being there for him during the fight with Blaine. They continue to ignore him for their issues even when time traveling. His standing up for himself against Blaine conquers his fears of inadequacy that have haunted him for 24 years. They all learn to let go of the regret they feel for the past by acting on it. It becomes a film about the catharsis of forgiving your younger self and moving on. Yet it’s also a comedy, so it takes this to the extreme by making Lou a billionaire who has solved all his problems.

The Science in The Fiction

For people who think the film is completely ridiculous in its approach to time travel, how much weirder is it than any other time travel film? A hot tub is certainly an odd choice for a time vehicle (surely chosen for comedic effect), but is it any weirder than a DeLorean (Back to the Future), a phone booth (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure), a police call box (Doctor Who), or the men’s bathroom (Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel)? It’s made even weirder by Chevy Chase’s mysterious, and cryptic repairman. He speaks in riddles, apparently trying to guide the group home, but without actually interfering. As Adam tells April, he’s a Time Lord and the hot tub is his Tardis. The question becomes is the hot tub really a time machine or did the addition of an “illegal” Russian energy drink somehow change the tub into one? While most time travelers have to set coordinates or a destination year, all these yoyos have to do is dump another Chernobly onto the control panel. But then again scientific accuracy of any kind is not the point of a film called Hot Tub Time Machine.

The Final Frontier

During the initial time travel sequence, I picked up some clever editing that I had not seen before. Besides lighting effects and crazy, spinning camera moves, the film also has some subtle (almost subliminal) clips spliced together with the four men in the tub. Adam, Lou, Nick, and Jacob are three white guys and a black guy–as well as three middle-aged guys and a nerdy twenty-something. If you watch closely during the tub party sequence, look for the characters in the tub to change. Quick shots include three white women (one with glasses) and one black one, three black guys (one with glasses) and one white guy, and Chevy Chase’s repairman with two buxom ladies. A lot of effort for a relatively quick, and imperceptible moment, but definitely fun to spot.

Of the actors in Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack has appeared in two other sci-fi films, Cell and 2012. The other three main cast members only have appeared in the sequel, Hot Tub Time Machine 2–which is a lackluster sequel that Sci-Fi Saturdays will be skipping. What I hadn’t remembered before rewatching this was that Sebastian Stan played Blaine the ski patrol douche. He has become a much bigger name in the past 15 years, most notably with his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier in numerous films. He appeared in another fun sci-fi film from 2105, The Martian (a film that will be happily reviewed here).

Overall, Hot Tub Time Machine is a fun film with an expected mix of heart along with its heaping helping of comedy. As with many other comedic films, it presents a valid message to the viewer about living for today and letting go of the past, which is something that can be difficult. But not as difficult as getting stabbed by a fork in your eye.

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