Review: Getting dunked by terrible Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Synopsis: After getting shot at his own party, Lou, with Nick and Jacob, go on a time-traveling hunt to search for Lou’s killer. But they unintentionally land in the future where they meet Adam Jr. Now they must modify the future in order to save the past (which is really the present).

“Hot Tub Time Machine 2” was a complete waste of an hour and a half of our time. The second time-traveling-themed movie of February is considerably worse than the small studio film “Project Almanac.” We had some hope for this sequel with the first film actually being decent if a somewhat guilty pleasure, but this director decides to save all the exciting time-traveling scenes from the previews for the end credits and instead makes you sit through the entire film with almost no actual time traveling except for their initial jump to the future. We hate to bash so hard on a film, but we almost walked out of the theater. There were some shining moments in this film that we would have liked to see them explore more but the overall product was thoroughly unenjoyable.

What worked: Although this film doesn’t have John Cusack, it introduces us to his character’s son, played by Adam Scott. Scott is one of the few assets of this film that we enjoyed. While he didn’t carry the movie like Cusack did, the moments he was in the film we actually had a laugh or two. The montage of time traveling during the end credits were fantastic and would have made the movie stronger if the clips had been spread throughout the film.

What didn’t work: The film tried too hard on making us invest in characters who weren’t likable and who had no redeeming qualities. Everyone knew that Lou was a total jerk but as the main protagonist, it makes it really hard to connect with him. In the first film, Nick is a very likable character but he apparently took on more of the qualities of Lou due to their manipulation of the time stream to become rich and famous, which leaves only Clark Duke’s Jacob to get behind. I honestly hoped they would all die after an hour. They overpowered the movie with unnecessary dialogue that seemed like ad-libbing and third-grade potty humor, failing to focus enough on time travel that is so heavily implied in the previews.

The majority of the film just felt dry and boring overall and can probably be purchased on a futuristic VHS tape. We were literally having difficulties keeping our eyes open. We wish we could go back in time and convince ourselves not to watch this horrible movie. We give this effortless time-traveling sequel a generous 3.5 out of 10.

This story was originally published February 27, 2015 at 3:21 PM with the headline "Review: Getting dunked by terrible Hot Tub Time Machine 2."