Hot Tub Time Machine 2
Directed by Steve Pink
- comedy
The story
After their first adventure with the Hot Tub Time Machine, Lou and Nick are living very well off their ill-gotten gains, while Jacob still cannot rely on Lou to be a positive role model. When an unknown assailant breaks into Lou's mansion and shoots him, Nick and Jacob take him for another trip in the hot tub. They emerge in the year 2025, where they must figure out who shot Lou and prevent it from happening again.
What it’s like
Loud, bright and garish, with saturated primary colours, cheap-looking futuristic sets and the glossy, flat digital sheen of a mid-budget studio comedy. The camera stays fairly conventional: medium two-shots in ski-lodge and mansion interiors, quick cuts for slapstick, and a 2025 that looks like a bright, sterile tech-company fantasy full of holograms and gleaming white corridors. Sound is brash pop-rock and needle-drop songs layered over bar chatter, rapid dialogue and pratfall noises. The vibe is boisterous, goofy and raunchy, with a comic energy that tips into crude. Pacing is brisk and never still, with gags landing every few minutes and a running stream of profanity, drinking and sexual innuendo. Intensity is moderate: frequent drunken sex jokes, nudity in comic contexts, a few bloody slapstick injuries and a brief shooting in the opening that is more farce than dread. It suits a loose Friday night with friends or a silly background watch with a drink in hand, rather than anything calm. The arcs centre on three middle-aged men reckoning with arrested adulthood and friendship, with the odd flash of sincerity. Best for people who want rowdy, profane, time-travel nonsense with a sentimental streak and no interest in subtlety.
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