Hot Tub Time Machine

Hot Tub Time Machine – 2010, Steve Pink

Cheve Chase got old!
But when you can’t get any real 80’s comedy legends to appear in your film, he’s always available.

Something else which is in danger of getting old is the Yearning For Lost Youth Bromance Comedy genre...for now at least. Porkies gets remade for every generation. When I was 16 it was American Pie, which at the time was hilarious, but the sequels and knock offs it spawned soon petered out until a new group of kids reached the age where they were old enough to go and see ‘adult’ comedies and Superbad was made.

Superbad is a lot better than American Pie because as well as all the hilarious gross out stuff, it placed an emphasis on the friendship shared by the main characters. At the end of Superbad we care more about those crazy kids going off to collage, we appreciate our own friendships more, the film makes the audience feel good and they tell their friends how much they like it. This whole ‘loving your bros’ vibe has been used in comedies ever since; Role Models, The Hangover, most blatantly in I Love You Man, and now Hot Tub Time Machine.

As well as the ‘these guys love each other just like you guys love each other’ angle, HTTM taps the comedy well of 80’s nostalgia. This film must have written itself; Poison, Motley Crue, Red Dawn, large mobile phones, Regan and AIDS. All the obvious gags appear, and there’s very little else. This film is inevitably funny, but it’s not as good as the more forgettable modern comedies. It’s still better than Harold and Kumar though.

At least HTTM has been released early enough to get ahead of the game as far as 80’s nostalgia goes, and at least it doesn’t take itself seriously, unlike the upcoming remake of Red Dawn and the probable Motly Crue biopic will.

I hope WASP aren’t feeling too left out.