Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (Steve Pink)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb / Wiki

[Henry Gale]

Is it wrong that I was so genuinely disappointed by this?

I mean, the first one is just a really nice, zesty, super re-watchable comedy with its characters and culture's '80s nostalgia helping provide emotional and comedic roots in that time. This one just doesn't have anything to cling on to.

It just makes all of the characters so one-note and almost irredeemably unlikeable or unbelievable, gives Gillian Jacobs next to nothing to do (Crime!), and worst of all it just never finds anything resembling a rhythm to its jokes. A good handful of which do illicit and chuckle here and there, but it's only the meta ones that really stick in my memory, and even they have the tone of being exhausted with the material. (Particularly a bit about Clark Dude complaining about having done a similar "You look like.." riff too many times. It's funny, but when you're simply making jokes about the redundancy of your own jokes, it's worrisome.) Only Adam Scott really manages to find a distinct, funny personality with his role in the film's world of 2025 and remains mostly unscathed by the sense of retread-gone-bad or the script's inability to shake an ugly sense of unimagination and cheap crudeness -- something the original had here and there, but eventually trades out for sweetness, which never happens this time.

Also, if you've seen any of the trailers, you've seen its attempt at an ending. [

Show Spoiler

Patriot Lou's "We gotta make America happen, bro!" with might be the second to last line of the film.

] The sense the marketing gave that this one would be more time-jumpy, having the characters go back and forth between different eras and ruining different timelines is relegated to end-credit photoshops and a day's worth of costume-swapping re-shoot afterthoughts with them just sitting in the titular hot tub talking about things they did offscreen. And of course it all sounds more enjoyable than anything that happens in the previous 80 minutes.

*½ / 3.2

[Pop Trash]

Really? We have a poll for this but not 50 Shades of Grey?

[Dukefrukem]

Really? We have a poll for this but not 50 Shades of Grey?

The first person who sees the movie typically makes the poll. So do it.

[Pop Trash]

The first person who sees the movie typically makes the poll. So do it.

I haven't seen 50 Shades of Grey. That comment was mostly about match cut's viewing habits. Clearly we aren't getting laid enough.