Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Hot Tub Time Machine is one of my favorite "stoner" comedies. I know it doesn't technically fall under that category but the style of humor is similar to movies like Harold & Kumar in that it's dumb humor, gross-out gags, and just unbridled ridiculousness. And that's fun to me. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 keeps that same formula but unfortunately it's missing a few key things that made the first one so great.

First is the novelty factor. We've seen these guys time travel before so the whole "explaining time" aspect isn't all that interesting. Second, there's no consistency. The first movie had a plot - it was an adventure from start to finish and you were with these characters the whole way. It was straightforward and it worked. Here, they try to save Lou from being killed by going back in time to stop the killer, but instead they go forward in time and apparently the killer is from that time and ended up going back in time to kill Lou, or something. It's just a dumb convoluted plot. Not that plot is important in a comedy; it just helps to have some sort of narrative to follow instead of scene after scene of ridiculousness.

And third and most importantly, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is missing John Cusack. He held the first movie together like glue. He played Adam, a likable everyman that the audience could relate to, and it helped that he had some of the funniest lines in the movie. This movie is all over the place without him. Lou is now the main character, and as much as I love Rob Corddry, his character gets really old really fast. His entire character revolves around gross-out humor and shock value, and it worked wonders in the first HTTM because Adam's sense of reason helped balance it out. Jacob is now the only voice of reason but he's Lou's son and serves as the punch-line to a lot of jokes in the movie. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Adam Scott is the newcomer playing Adam Jr., the son of John Cusack's character. The gang meets Adam Jr. in the future and he ends up going on the adventure to find Lou's killer with them. I love Adam Scott and he was fine in this movie, but he didn't really add anything noteworthy to the group's dynamic. He plays a geeky character who's about to get married, then on their adventure as you can imagine, drugs get consumed and mistakes are made. He definitely provides some laughs, and the group is still enjoyable to watch for the most part, but you can definitely feel a void in the character department.

The most important thing about a comedy is obviously the laughs, and this movie has a few. Much of the dialogue feels like shock value for the sake of being crude. Again, it works sometimes. Other times, not so much. Everything was done better in the first film. This definitely feels like a cash grab movie, especially since they didn't even bother asking John Cusack to return because they knew they'd have to pay him a sh*tload of money (although he does have a nice little cameo in the unrated version). But all in all, it's not terrible. It's a run-of-the-mill raunchy comedy with some funny moments and a lot of disgusting ones. It's worth maybe a one-time watch - if you were a fan of the first one you'll find some good chuckles here and there, and if you haven't seen the first one then you might enjoy this even more because you have nothing to compare it to.

As far as sequels go, it could have been a lot worse. The fact remains though that Hot Tub Time Machine 2 was simply unnecessary.

So i got lost a bit in the beginning so i kinda had to watch bits and pieces from the first movie :\

The plot is weak, didn't made an hint of impression ,in some parts felt all over the place, no where near the fresh new idea as the first movie, making the traveling this time to the future was a clever touch trying to save the sequel,, And to be fair the comedy worked in some other parts. The storyline was okay, and the screenplay looked tidier and tighter after the first 40 minutes.

As for the cast, they were engaging ,, i mean after 2010 the cast drifted apart to their own stuff, Rob Corddry spent a quality time on TV with his "Children's Hospital" show ,, Craig Robinson on "The office" and "the Cleveland show" and same goes for Clark Duke ,, so coming back here after a 5 years gap looked somehow not that WoWzer moment but it went fine in the end.

Overall,, even though the plot was weak, the writers and the dorky oddly funny scenes of the three guys plus Adam Scott did a good job saving some dignity for the movie ... i'm sure it wasn't so satisfying for the "hot tub time machine" loyal Fans ,, but if i'd like to keep it brightly optimistic i'd say 4 out 10 seems quite fair for the sequel.

When I first saw Hot Tub Time Machine back in 2010, I was pleasantly surprised. It was an entertaining buddy movie that yearned for something more, that came packaged with a soul and an ethos, and with its powerful heart, it took great strides to comfort us and lead us on a journey toward self-discovery and catharsis. Hot Tub Time Machine was as much an exercise in great dark comedy as it was a purge of all that was wrong in our lives, and it came loaded with characters that were funny yet so very human. It had all the markings of a truly great movie, and one could tell it was a labor of love, carefully crafted by an adept team.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2, on the other hand, casts itself far astray from its predecessor. In this sequel, we find our regular cast of characters (Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke – John Cusack is absent this time around) living the good future they've carved out for themselves in their last outing. But they're unhappy. Ego and wealth has seized hold of them, and in Corddry's case, has turned him into a frustratingly awful monster that no one, not even his wife or son, can stand. It's during the middle of a party where Fate propels them on another adventure, as a cloaked assassin shoots Corddry in the family jewels. The team rallies together and plunges through the pool of time to find this assassin and halt a "friend's" murder.

Along the way, our protagonists meet up with Adam Scott, cast as a replacement to and a bastard child of John Cusack's character. And it's through Scott that Robinson, Duke, and Corddry discover they weren't just propelled into the future, they were cast onto an alternate time line, a recurring joke intended to spoof several popular movie franchises as of late, most notably The Terminator franchise. After a convoluted exposition and an overdone foundation for time travel, hilarity ensues.

So the audience waits. And waits. And waits. The sounds of candy wrappers and teeth mashing popcorn echo off the walls of the theater. A few people cough. Someone blows snot into tissue paper. A cell phone warbles the classic Power Rangers theme through a pair of jeans. But no one laughs. The audience is so stoic, I find myself wondering if I accidentally stumbled into a screening of American Sniper. Nope. Rob Corddry is on screen vomiting penis jokes at a mile a minute. And no one is laughing.

It's like this for most of the movie. Every twenty minutes I might hear a slight chuckle, but this theater is mostly a mausoleum. Saint Peter is before us, showing us the last endeavors of director Steve Pink and writer Josh Heald before their careers died. It's a lesson for us, a morality play on cashing in with an undeserving sequel.

"Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is lazy," Saint Peter tells us. "It's a bucket of unused jokes thrown at the screen in disarray, hoping — nay, praying — something sticks. It's a good thing John Cusack knew well enough to stay away, but the devils who made this had to go ahead and drag Adam Scott into this disaster." There's a scene midway through Hot Tub Time Machine 2 where Scott trips on psychotropic drugs. He puts this thing called an "electric ladybug" on his neck, which is little more than a bug-shaped microchip. Scott trips for hours and hours, and it's an excuse for the creative time to play with different lenses and editing tools. As I'm watching Scott make a goof of himself for the camera, his head twisting and turning into odd shapes while he makes faces, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Here he is, having the time of his life, and we're staring at him like a bunch of old people on a bench with nothing better to do — arms folded and hell bent on people-watching.

What's even sadder is Scott's whole motivation, as a character, is to find his dad. The movie teases us with John Cusack references frequently, whether it's the group of friends finding Cusack's trench coat or his boxed memories of "Cincinnati" (a point of furious indignation in the first film) or Scott, holding up Cusack's photo, bemoaning the ills of being a fatherless son. And whether or not this teasing was meant to be a joke, there's no delivery, and there's no punch line. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 dangles the carrot of a missing character, arguably the one who brings the cathartic element to the previous film, above our heads for an hour and a half and offers nothing for solace. Much like the rest of the movie, there's no sense of closure, no real turning points or soulful characters on a quest to better themselves.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 isn't another darkly comedic exploration of the human condition. It's just junk food, and even as junk food, it doesn't taste very good. The jokes are half-assed and the script is unpolished. It's a last minute effort to capitalize on a movie that built quite a sizable fan base.

After watching this movie, it only confirms what I already believe, and thats critics don't know what the f*ck there talking about most of the time. I was a bit put off by all the bad reviews, but I am glad I gave it a watch because this was frickin hilarious! Sure the plot doesn't make sense or it doesn't have John Cusack, but who gives a f*ck! you get more of Craig Robinson, Rob Courddry and Clark Duke, who let's be honest provided most of the laughs from the original. Sure it's more crude and it may not appeal to all those artsy fartsy critics who are whining about the movie not being PC, but if you want a good stoner movie to watch with the guys and enjoy something without taking it too seriously, watch it! I think it is on par with the first and has been unfairly judged. Compared to most comedy sequels, that always do the same thing as the first (hangover sequels), at least this went in a completely over the top direction that was more like a bunch of comedy skits than an actual movie. Overall, I thought it was hilarious and a definite guilty pleasure. Sure it won't appeal to everyone, and its not supposed too. Obviously for a movie like this you don't expect much just a lot of laughs and this is definitely a goofy stoner comedy best enjoyed under the influence.

7/10

"Hot Tub Time Machine 2," the sequel to the critical and box office hit from 2010, proves definitively that if at first you DO succeed, don't try again.

As Part 2 opens, we find that two of the original time-trippers (Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry) have parlayed their earlier visit back to 1986 into fame and fortune in 2015 (a third, Clark Duke, is pretty much the "butler" to his successful dad). John Cusack, the fourth member of the group, has wisely chosen to take a pass on this misbegotten reunion. He clearly used the hot tub to attain the foreknowledge that this particular venture had disaster written all over it.

Now the remaining trio has to travel ten years into the future to prevent Corddry's assassination in the present (don't ask). Adam Scott ("Parks and Recreation") and Gillian Jacobs ("Community") join in the festivities, though we suspect they'll not want to emphasize this particular part of their resume in any future auditions.

The screenplay by Josh Heald is, to put it mildly, a bit of an incoherent mess, short on logic and humor and long on jokes involving punctured testicles, spurting semen and homosexual rape. There is one funny scene in which the three look into a mirror to see their true selves in 2025, but the writer seems to have saved most of his best material for a clever and amusing end-title sequence. Whether it's worth the ninety minutes of dreck you have to sit through to get there is something you'll have to determine for yourself.