Don’t let the name fool you. Hot Tub Time Machine is hilarious.
The movie comes out at the end of this month, and I saw the sneak preview Thursday night with my family, which I wouldn’t recommend because there was a lot of profanity and sexual humor and simulation.
But adult content aside, Hot Tub was a fun movie. It’s a cross between Porky’s, Back To the Future, Sixteen Candles and The Karate Kid, and it even had some of the stars from those movies, such as the man who played George McFly on Back To the Future and the guy who was the bully Johnny on The Karate Kid.
The star of Hot Tub is 2012’s John Cusack, who acted in a lot of teen movies, such as 1980s classics Say Anything and Sixteen Candles. He portrays one of three best friends who are unhappy with their lives. They flee to a cabin in the mountains after one of them nearly commits suicide to Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home”.
While getting drunk and goofing off in a hot tub, the friends end up back in 1986. Things appear to be normal until the one-armed bellman greets them and has both arms. Then, they notice other lodgers are wearing legwarmers and “Where’s The Beef?” T-shirts and rocking to cassette players instead of Ipods and MP3s.
To confirm the time period, one of the guys asks a girl,” What color is Michael Jackson?”, and he screams when the girl says “black” because in 1986 the King of Pop’s skin color hadn’t turned white yet.
The friends soon realize they have an opportunity to change their pathetic present existence, but they fear a butterfly effect will alter their future for the worst.
Hot Tub plays out like Back To the Future with the kid seeing his mom behave like a slut in her early years, a Biff-acting bully, a future child facing non-existence and one friend plays with a band and includes a selection from the future, The Black Eyed Peas’ “Let’s Get It Started”. In order to return to the present, the pals have to fix the flux capacitor, just like in Back To The Future.
Chevy Chase makes a few cameos in a role that parallels Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown in Back To the Future, Christopher Walken’s Morty in Click and Don Knotts’ TV repairman in Pleasantville.
Fans of the 1980s and movies from that decade will enjoy going back to 1986 with the guys in Hot Tub Time Machine. The movie hits theaters on March 26.

By Teneshia LaFaye
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/teneshialafaye
Add me on Myspace: www.myspace.com/tlafaye