Hot Tub Time Machine
I went to see Hot Tub Time Machine last night. My dad offered to see the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, but quite frankly, that doesn’t interest me. He’s intrigued mostly because he wants to see at least one instalment on a cinema screen, but if I were given the choice I’d rather watch the original film or Part 3. Given the fact modern cinemas do not perform wish fulfilment, I opted for Hot Tub instead, which was the only one that caught my fancy. The trailer was stupidly enticing!
Well, if you can read the title and know the modern trend of movie making these days, you can probably imagine the film is a raunchy comedy rife with sex, drugs, rock and roll and bad language, with the establishing motif of it being four guys from 2010 being sent back to 1986, giving the movie a free license to offer all kinds of nostalgia-based pop culture references. It is the very antithesis of highbrow entertainment and I loved every minute of it.
In another example of my increasingly crappy ability to review movies, I will not be talking about the film itself. Instead, RQ87 posed an interesting question – was it better than Iron Man 2?
That’s a tough one.
I mean, Iron Man 2 was freakin’ Iron Man 2. I’d almost say that the build-up to the film’s release left a bigger impact on me than the movie itself, though it certainly made for a decent watch. It may not have lived up to the original, but it was a more filling movie to watch than, say, Vampire Bats. And I thought Vampire Bats wasn’t bad! Iron Man 2 supplied a moderate dose of action, heaps of fanservice and an entertaining plot with some very amusing character interaction. You could argue that if it weren’t a sequel to a stupendously fantastic film that I am forever biased towards I probably wouldn’t be so ehhh about it, but my brain has totally collapsed into itself lately and I would not be able to provide a valid debate without dribbling all over myself and getting angry at a light bulb.
Hot Tub Time Machine, meanwhile… I had no expectations from it aside from the raunchy humour the trailer promised, and that’s what I got. I also got a cameo from Crispin Glover playing a one-armed bellboy. It’s one of those films that when watched in the company of others becomes the source of all manner of laughter, especially at the stupidest of gags, and unpleasant peer pressure situations like having to perform oral copulation on your best friend’s pork sword as a result of a bet somehow become hilarious (instead of reasons to declare that humanity has sunk forever into a bubbling, spewing cesspool of metaphoric turmoil). You know, one of those movies. Seriously, I enjoyed it, and I couldn’t help but love just the way it was made – the pace is never slack, it always bounces itself to new areas and events just to keep the ball rolling, and the film doesn’t even need more than ten minutes to provide a sufficient look into each of the main characters’ lives and their personalities. I’d like to say it’s just good writing and punchy editing, though you could argue, again, that it’s just because they’re flat characters. It’s probably not wise for a review to argue with its own thoughts. It’s probably not healthy for me, either.
But which of the two movies is better? When I left the cinema I will admit, for five minutes at most, I was almost leaning towards finding Hot Tub to be the more enjoyable film overall, but now I’m not too sure! I mean, it may have someone puking on a squirrel, but Iron Man 2 simply has Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, who is such a marvel to watch that even during court scenes he’s a star. I am a horribly wishy-washy person and that flaw will no doubt doom me to a miserable demise at some point in my life, but for now, I’ll just say they’re both pretty good. But I mean it’s a bit dumb comparing them in the first place, one’s a lads comedy and the other is a superhero flick. It’s like apples and bowling balls, man.
