There is no real reason to watch Hot Tub Time Machine (2010).  I remember seeing it in the theater at a time when I had a different perspective on my Faith.  Back then, I did not think too much about what I put in front of my eyeballs.  Now, I look at it in terms of the potential damage it can do to my soul.  Even the most committed Christian can be corrupted by the influences of the world, over which the enemy presides.  I would not call this film satanic, but the corruption in it is real.  Hence, I do my best to avoid these kinds of movies, and I try to be careful with how I consume them.  Having said all this, there are a few interesting lessons to be gleaned from the muck and mire.  This is a big part of what keeps me going with The Legionnaire, to take from American culture that which can be useful on your way (hopefully) to Heaven. The rest, like the overwhelming majority of this movie, you can thus safely ignore.

With a name like Hot Tub Time Machine, you can rightly expect time travel.  For the moment, though, you are introduced in the present to three longtime friends.  The first is Nick Webber-Agnew (Craig Robinson/Aliu Oyofo).  I will explain the slashes in a moment.  He works at a high-end pet store, and is not happy with the work he does.  Indeed, none of them are.  Adam Yates (John Cusack/Jake Rose) has just been dumped by his girlfriend because he does “nothing,” or more accurately, “nothing wrong.”  The emphasis is on the first word.  The worst off of them is Lou “Violator” Dorchen (Rob Corddry/Brook Bennett).  When we meet him, after phone calls to the other two that are ignored, he pulls into his garage drunk and clearly intending to kill himself by carbon monoxide poisoning.  Thankfully, he fails, landing him in the hospital.  It is there that the three of them finally come together.  The doctor tells Adam and Nick that Lou is clear to leave, but that he should be monitored for the next few days.  To that end, Adam and Nick inform Lou that they are going to go to one of their old haunts, the Kodiak Valley Ski Resort.  So excited is Lou by this news that he pulls the catheter out of himself and demands they leave immediately.  This turns out to be the next morning, and his enthusiasm is dampened a bit when Adam brings his nephew Jacob Yates (Clark Duke), a pale shut-in who is living with Adam while his sister, Jacob’s mom, gets her life together.  Lou hates Jacob.  Nonetheless, they head for Kodiak Valley and find that the area has not aged well in the last twenty-five years.  The resort that they used to stay in run down, and the old bellhop, Phil Wedmaier (Crispin Glover), is missing an arm.  There does not seem to be anything to do but drink in their room, particularly since the eponymous bathing device appears to be on the fritz.  Before Lou goes completely insane, though, the mysterious Repairman (Chevy Chase) arrives to tell them that the hot tub has been fixed.  With nothing better to do, they take their revelry into the water, and in a whirlwind they wake up the next morning still immersed.  Shaking off their liquor, they decide to go ski, feeling better than anyone should at their age given the amount of alcohol they took in.  This is when they begin to notice that something is amiss.  At first, they assume that everyone dressed in 1980s skiing attire is some kind of convention.  It is not until they go into a common area that their current reality sinks in: they have somehow traveled back to 1986.  They go back to their room, evidently perplexed, and find the Repairman there working on the hot tub.  From his cryptic answers they gather that the tub’s mechanics being doused with Lou’s weird Russian energy drink is what caused their temporal displacement.  This also comes with a warning that they must do exactly what they did all those years ago.  The final revelation comes when they look in the mirror, seeing their nineteen-year-old selves even though they look like their grown-up versions to each other.  Everyone else, though, sees them as nineteen-year-olds, including Adam’s girlfriend at the time, Jenny (Lyndsy Fonseca), and his sister, Kelly Yates (Collette Wolfe).  This is the reason for the slashes earlier.  The three friends, and Jacob, naturally, do little of what they are supposed to do, except for a few rare instances.  I am going to gloss over a few things here because a lot of it involves inappropriate behavior.  Adam is supposed to break up with Jenny, but finds this difficult because she is hot and his most recent dumping is still fresh.  Yet, she ends up doing it anyway, which brings him to another woman, April Drennan (Lizzy Caplan), who he randomly meets at a Poison concert.  It is Lou, though, that surprisingly has the most profound experience.  He feels abandoned by his friends, in the future and past.  This comes to the fore when he is left alone to face ski patrol jock, and bully, Blaine (Sebastian Stan).  Blaine ends up taking the last can of the Russian drink, which he assumes is some kind of Soviet bomb.  With the Repairman once more telling Jacob that it is time to go, they must go to the ski patrol party to get the required liquid, meaning Lou must face Blaine once more.  At the same time, he has sex with Kelly, making him Jacob’s father, which should tell you the kind of humor for which this movie settles.  Anyway, when it is time to, er, go back to the future, Lou decides to stay in the past.  He does so because he wants to become rich.  Thus, when the other three return, they find their lives different from when they left.  Adam is married to April, Nick is a music producer, and Lou, among other things, changes Google to “Lougle.”  The madness is capped off with everyone having a celebratory meal together.

If you have made it thus far, you may be asking yourself what good could possibly come from a film like Hot Tub Time Machine.  The short answer is not a whole lot.  As I said, there is drinking, drugs, sex, and everything that goes along with those things.  Underneath this coarse exterior, though, if you care enough to look, there is a heart.  The central question is, if you had the opportunity to do it all over again, would you change anything?  The movie’s answer seems to be yes, but it is a movie.  There are also explorations of the idea of fate.  This is played out in Adam’s interactions with Jenny.  The first time around when he broke up with Jenny, she stabbed him just above the eye with a fork.  You might think this would turn out differently in this version since she dumps him.  However, he tells her how she turns out to be fat in the future, and she stabs him anyway.  Is that fate?  Or destiny?  Is there a difference?  The Church will tell you not to put too much stock in trying to figure out our fate, which is what people want to know, and part of why a film like this appeals to people.  There are times when God can grant us a vision of future events, but these are often difficult to determine.  Either way, such things are best left to God.  This kind of knowledge is really God’s alone, and anything beyond it is a gift from God.  It cannot be conjured like magic, nor should that be attempted, or found through the use of a device like in the title. Instead, we should find a way to be content with what God does give us because, even when it does not seem beneficial. The movie does not get to this point with how it ended, which is frustrating, but it was headed there before Lou made his decision at the end.  Since actual time travel does not exist, we need to learn to be okay with what God gives us because it is enough.

As it turns out, there is a second Hot Tub Time Machine.  I think the reason I did not see it when it came out is because I was disappointed that John Cusack did not return.  I may review it next, though I cannot imagine it being much different.  Still, one can hope.  In the meantime, read this review instead of watching the movie.