Hot Tub Time Machine

Impressions before seeing it
Time travel stuff is always fun, although it's done dramatically more often than comedically, so I was looking forward to it. And I like the cast as well.

How was it?
A recurring theme throughout Hot Tub Time Machine is its borrowing from other time travel movies (mostly Back to the Future). There's a scene where Nick (Craig Robinson) performs a song from the future, and a story arc about making money off of knowledge about sports outcomes; Jacob (Clark Duke) occasionally flickers in and out of existence because he wasn't born in 1986; there's a recurring bully character much like Biff, and an all important item that the guys need for the hot tub to take them home; instead of returning home one character stays behind like Doc Brown in the old west, and Crispin Glover even shows up as part of one of the funniest running gags, a bellboy who has one arm in present day, leaving the guys in anticipation of seeing him lose it in the past as he gets into a series of near accidents. However, being that the hot tub took them back to the '80's it felt right that they should pay tribute to an '80's time travel movie, and so I didn't feel like they were cheating me with a plethora of rip-off scenes.

One thing I'm not sure I liked was the decision to depict the guys as their forty-something year-old selves in the past. I understand that it was necessary so that our lead actors had more to do than just the first and last ten minutes of the movie, but I don't know if that was the only reason or if the filmmakers thought that showing them as young guys for too long might make us forget that they are still older men on the inside. Hopefully just the first reason. But I would like to say that the kid playing young John Cusack was so well cast, I almost thought they'd digitally inserted old footage of young Cusack into the mirror. Just look at the similarities on the poster. See what I mean?

Recommendation
I had fun because, as I said, time travel is a blast, and there were some hilarious moments - a lot of them from Rob Corddry as the wildest of the group. Definitely check it out if you are a Back to the Future fan. You might appreciate the nostalgia, and have some laughs as well.