Reviews::Main

Director: Steve Pink Year: 2010 Language: English Country: America

After doctors suspect him of attempting suicide, Lou is taken by his friends Nick and Adam (John Cusack) along with Adam's nephew Jacob on a ski-trip. At the Kodiak Pines resort, Nick, Lou and Adam aim to relive their youth by drinking, hooking up with chicks and partying hard. Upon arrival, they soon realise that the resort is not the Kodiak Pines they remember and that it is more run-down than in their youth.

While the foursome party alone in their suite, they soon end up in the hot-tub and wake to find that they have been transported back to 1986. Nick, Lou and Adam find themselves back in their teenage bodies' and Jacob is threatened with non-existance, having not yet been born. After a warning from a strange hot-tub repairman, the trio must relive their time in the past without changing the future with Jacob supervising.

While the plot outline sounds both quirk and cliched at the same time, it works quite well in practice, the film is tongue-in-cheek and doesn't take itself seriously which allows the viewer to gloss over the ridiculous plot.

The gags are for the most part peurile, but hilarious, with a good mix of material. A number of recurrent jokes are worked in which build up as the movie wears on as well as some suspense courtesy of knowledge we have from the future shown at the start of the film.

All in all, while Hot Tub Timemachine may not be high art, it's great entertainment and there are a lot of very funny moments worked in. Well worth seeing.

Dave W - 26th April, 2010 - 21:04