Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Dir: Steve Pink

2015

*

I was going to say that I didn’t see Hot Tub Time Machine 2 when it came out in 2015 because, seeing as I only saw the first film because of the intriguing title and because John Cusack was in it, there was little point (the title is no longer new and John Cusack did not return) but the truth is I’m not sure I even noticed that it had come out. I only saw it when it arrived on television one night while I was watching. It is dreadful. I was wasn’t surprised that John Cusack didn’t want to return but then I learned that the only reason he didn’t was because he wasn’t asked. How dumb is that? The whole film is dumb, not to mention pointless, crass and utterly heartless. This is not a passion project or a happy reunion, it just reeks of desperation and a total lack of creativity. When a pet is dying you put it down, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is like a twenty year old dog with cancer, made to perform for treats when all it wants is for the pain to stop and to die with dignity. Adam Scott does not make up for a lack of John Cusack. Ten Adam Scotts would not make up for a lack of John Cusack. Five years after the events of the first film, Lou Dorchen and Nick Webber have become rich and famous, with Lou becoming a multi-billionaire and Nick being a successful music singer. At Lou's celebratory party, Lou is shot in the groin. Jacob (Lou's son) and Nick drag him to the hot tub time machine and activate it to travel back in time to find and stop the killer. None of which makes any sense at all. When they awaken they find themselves ten years in the future, where Jacob is in charge of Lou's mansion. After determining that they are in an alternate timeline where Lou's killer is from this future, they go to their friend Adam Yates's home, only to meet his son Adam Yates Stedmeyer (Adam Jr., played by Adam Scott) who is engaged to a girl named Jill. Lou suspects his nemesis Gary Winkle is the killer, but he learns Gary actually made his own fortune from some land that Lou could have purchased. They party at Gary's nightclub, where Adam Jr. takes hallucinogens for the first time. The next day, they attend the popular television game show Choozy Doozy, where contestant Nick is required to have virtual reality sex with a man. As Lou suggested the idea, he is obliged to participate, but uses his "lifeline" to switch with Adam Jr. Jacob becomes disillusioned with the misadventures and leaves the group to get drunk at Gary's club and to then commit suicide by jumping off an extremely high building. Lou makes amends with him and prevents his suicide. When the guys see a news report where Brad, an employee of Lougle, invents nitrotrinadium, the ingredient that activates the hot tub time machine, they suspect he is the killer. At Adam Jr's wedding, Jacob talks with Brad and realizes he is not the killer but that he invented the chemical after being inspired by Lou's words. Jill, who is upset about Adam Jr's partying, has sex with Lou, but when Adam Jr. finds out, he steals the nitrotrinadium and goes back to the past. Jacob, Nick and Lou return to the mansion, but are too late to stop Adam Jr. As the guys sit in defeat, Jacob realizes that because the chemical has appeared in the past, it now exists in the future. They return to the present and stop Adam Jr. from shooting Lou after Lou apologizes to him. Following this incident, Nick apologizes to Courtney as Lou tells his wife he wants to go to rehab for his drug addictions. Adam Jr. meets Jill for the first time. The more optimistic Jacob approaches Sophie (his girlfriend in the future) and convinces her to join him in a relationship. As Lou, Nick, Jacob, and Adam Jr. return to the hot tub, Lou's head is shot off by a Lou (or Adam Sr. in the Unrated version) dressed in a minuteman costume. Patriot Lou informs them there are multiple Lous anyway and invites them to "make America happen." During the closing credits, the guys are seen exploiting the time machine to change history. Watch close and you can see Craig Robinson and Clark Duke are embarrassed to be there, even the god-awful Rob Corddry has a glimmer of regret in his eye in certain scenes. It’s shambolic and rather shameful really. Even the most brain-dead of idiots would switch off and watch something less mindless instead. It doesn’t even feel like it was written, rather it just happened, like terrible mistakes often do. They spent very little money on it and it still lost money and seriously, whoever decided that the film should be made and released shouldn’t be working in a film studio, indeed, they probably no longer are.