With a name like “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” it’s clear that this film isn’t trying to be anything more than what it is: a crude comic second stab at a time travel movie. But this self-awareness isn’t enough to save it from being a mediocre film whose overbearing underwear humor shrivels after only a few minutes in the water.
Set years after the first “Hot Tub,” the sequel, directed by the returning Steve Pink, follows three friends, Lou (Rob Corddry), Nick (Craig Robinson) and Jacob (Clark Duke), on an adventure through a time machine. Their goal? To prevent Lou’s future murder. It’s a plot pretty similar to the first movie’s, except this time the hot tub takes us — wait for it — into the future.
In the first 10 minutes of the movie alone, we endure a shameless exhibition of how the titular hot tub time machine has changed all of the characters’ lives since their last soak. Apparently, after years have gone by and the characters have grown, the tub remains the single topic of thought and conversation for all of them. Instead of deeply introspective sages reflecting on the fickleness of action and consequence, we have a handful of paper-thin goofballs who, in the remaining 80 minutes, struggle to produce any amount of fruitful dialogue.
Another of the film’s major downfalls lies in the shortcuts taken with the writing, preventing the movie from achieving its full potential as a time travel comedy (because there is such a thing). When the friends arrive in the future, for instance, they say something along the lines of, “Wow, isn’t it weird how everything is the same as before?” If this was meant as surreal deadpan humor, it did not come off that way. Here, the film lazily avoids the task of creating a complex futuristic world, and hardly cares.
The shortcomings make the movie barely cohesive, with characters jumping around to different locations without transitions or explanations. It makes the classic quest story — one with a fairly simple plot — something unreasonably challenging to follow and just as difficult to believe — even accepting all that time travel stuff.
In fairness, it seems the actors themselves dutifully work to the best of their ability with the limited material they have. Adam Scott plays a naïve Adam Yates Jr., nephew of Lou, who gets mixed into the group’s chaotic shenanigans come the future. If the film had writing as consistently funny as “Parks and Recreation,” which Scott is famous for, he might have been able to rise above the tyranny of sex jokes. Instead, his character’s sexual assault serves as an unfortunate representation of the actor’s unsavory mistreatment and the film’s lack of real comedy.
After wearing out the same joke book — extended strings of insults that manage to get a few chuckles at best, hallucinogenic trip scenes and so on — for over an hour, the film attempts to redeem itself by throwing together some wholesome scenes in which our characters make amends and realize the faults of their debauchery. The scene fails to be touching, however, because of everything that came before it. It is hard to get emotional after almost no transition from the crude, desensitizing humor that precedes such scenes.
The expectations for a sequel to the obscene original “Hot Tub Time Machine” are not set very high. But where the first movie makes up for its flaws with a carefree, enjoyable trip with solid acting, the sequel fails to offer the same concessions. If you have fond memories of the original and want to keep them, best to keep your clothes on and stay out of the tub.
