Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015)

Crappy film

A lot of fun.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I watched the first Hot Tub Time Machine Last night in preparation for the sequel. The first one is a very funny well put together movie, nostalgic, clever and cool. After watching it I was all excited for the next movie, however ten minutes in there was still no sign of John Cusack. Not a good sign... It then became obvious that this movie was a piece of turd. Simply put: this thing was shabbily made in an attempt to cash in on the mediocre success of the first one. I imagine Cusack took one look at the script and said no clucking way. I suggest you do the same and avoid this hack garbage.

The original Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) was not specifically a box office hit, but it did garner some fans and did get several well written reviews. While the original was clever and funny from start to finish, this follow-up sequel offers the exact opposite and takes away any charm audience were expecting. Without John Cusuck, that leaves just Rob Corddry, Clark Duke, and Craig Robinson returning to their roles as Lou, his son Jacob and Nick respectively as well as its director Steve Pink. From then on, picking up years later from the original, Lou, who stayed in the past, is now a successful musician-turned-Steve-Jobs-like-businessman who created Lougle and living the rock star world as if he was Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. Many have compared this sequel to the sequel of the Hangover. Both didn't live up to the hype and weren't as great as the originals, but the main difference is in the box office. The Hangover 2 made far more money and made more than the original, while Hot Tub Time Machine 2 was the exact opposite. This film being a box office disaster ensures a third film won't be in the works, which may be for the best.

You might have overly loved the first Hot Tub movie and it might exceeded your expectations. Therefor you might have very high expectations of this one. But this one just drags the hilarious along and does not care too much on making sense. In fact, you could say it spits on anything that tries to explain what is going on or is trying to give it a certain quality at all.What this succeeds in doing, is being gross, mean and infantile. Now if that is what you're expecting going into this, you'll have a lot of fun. But remember: this is not about quality, and I cannot stress that out enough. It's about a group of people gathering together and taking the p... as the British would say (translation: having fun). Take that with a grain of salt and it'll help enjoy the movie. I know I was entertained enough, with just watching one sketch following another. Remember: this is just a movie (with no scientific explanations to the weird things that are happening).

With the success of the 'Hot Tub Time Machine', both critically and financially, it made sense to make a sequel. Well that time has come and original director and writer Steve Pink and Josh Heald have conjured up more or less a similar story, but this time with more gross out humor and less 80's pop culture references. Instead of going back in time, the gang minus John Cusack jumps in the tub and end up in the year 2025 in New Orleans, where it looks more like 2015 with the exception of pets flying on hover boards and automobiles acting like humans.It's fairly difficult these days to make something fresh and original in the time-travel genre. More often than not, it's the same thing we've seen over and over, with a few exceptions. And as a young Jacob (Clark Duke) tries to explain to Lou (Rob Corddry) and Nick (Craig Robinson) why they are in an alternate timeline of 2025, Nick can only compare things to 'The Terminator' or 'Looper'. If you try to in the least bit to understand the time travel equations or aspects that 'Hot Tub Time Machine 2' is trying to convey, you might have an aneurysm.The best case scenario is that you go into this with an open mind and laugh at all the raunchy jokes and hilarious improv these actors deliver. Make no mistake, you'll leave with sore cheeks from laughing so hard. Heald and Pink give us a montage of what's been going on with our characters since the first film. Lou has become even more of a dick since the first film and has single handedly crashed and burned his company 'Lougle', whereas Nick has continued to "write" hit songs and make tons of money. As for Jacob (the supposed smart one of the group), he has literally done nothing with his life, besides watch television and become the brunt of abuse from his dad Lou.During a party for Lou, a mystery person shoots Lou's dick off with a shotgun, where Lou, Nick, and Jacob jump into the hot tub again (a quick explanation is given as to why Lou has the hot tub) and are transported to the year 2025 to save Lou's life. I know, how could Lou be alive and have his man parts in tact in the future, when we clearly see them blown to bits in the past. It's all loosely explained as an alternate timeline, but again, try no to think about it too much. So now the three men must try and find and stop Lou's killer.Corrdy explained in an interview recently that this type of film wasn't John Cusack's affinity, which is why he probably wasn't in the film, although he is mentioned quite a bit. In this alternate time line, Pink and Heald did a good job of replacing Cusack with Adam Scott, who plays Cusack's character's son. It's quite fun as Adam Scott fully commits with his warm almond milk and man skirt. These four guys riff off each other perfectly, and as seasoned comedians, always deliver each joke with perfect timing.Perhaps the highlight of the film is a Christian Slater hosted reality show called 'Choozy Doozy', where anal rape is common. Instead of a fairly cohesive story like we had in the first film, Pink and Heald decided to put a bunch of raunchy and vulgar scenes together to gain more laughs and gross out moments, than a fluid story. But the camaraderie of these four guys and their funny jokes definitely keep this film from being the big stinker it could have been. But luckily for you and I, 'Hot Tub Time Machine 2' delivers the laughs often, even if many things don't make sense or play out.