Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Grade: D

Director: Steve Pink

Starring: Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Adam Scott and Gillian Jacobs

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 33 min.

John Cusack doesn’t return for Hot Tub Time Machine 2, and his Adam Yates character is not nearly all that’s missing from this misbegotten sequel. Gone is the goofs-out-of-water historical conceit of the 1980s-set original, replaced by a profane, pointless and humorless script that goes forward in time but backward in everything else.

You’ll wish the film had ended inside the opening half-hour with lout Lou Dorchen (Rob Corddry, the flop sweat flowing), now mogul of a Google-style Internet startup, getting shotgunned in the groin. Sadly, Lou, son Jacob (Clark Duke) and now-popular pop sensation Nick Webber (Craig Robinson) take another plunge into the titular aquatic portal to save Lou’s life and cure the malaise of their seemingly successful lives.

In 2025, this grating trio encounter Adam Jr. (Adam Scott) and, while (kinda) trying to solve the mystery of “Who Shot Lou?” pick a fight with a homicidal smart car, have forced virtual gay sex on a Christian Slater-hosted game show, and get inebriated … a lot.

Director Steve Pink ignores the vast past settings he could have comedically mined until a hurried, purposeless epilogue that positions the Hot Tub Time Machine series to possibly mirror the chronological route of the Back to the Future trilogy. However, one of those film series was directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg, and one is not.

A few farcical non sequiturs elicit mild chuckles, but the storyline largely lurches from one lazy, bodily fluid-filled set piece after another. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 needs a lot of things, but mainly another concept, a different screenplay, better acting and plenty of bromine.

Sex Tape

Pros leave the roller skates on

Grade: C –

Director: Jake Kasdan

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper and Rob Lowe

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 34 min.

The presence of Rob Lowe in a movie titled Sex Tape is as witty as this flaccid farce gets—Google “Rob Lowe sex tape” if you’re too young to get the reference. The film even momentarily goes next level when the setting shifts to madcap sequence inside the mansion of Hank, Lowe’s character, which is adorned with a series of paintings featuring Hank’s face drawn into classic Disney movie stills, including The Lion King, Pinocchio, and—yep, you guessed it—Snow White. [Google “Rob Lowe Snow White” if you don’t get that one, either.]

A bawdy bore, Sex Tape is the unsexiest movie about sex, and that’s saying something considering one of its derriere-bearing stars is Cameron Diaz. Diaz reteams with her Bad Teacher director Jake Kasdan and co-star Jason Segel as a couple, Jay (Segel) and Annie (Diaz), whose red hot college romance has transitioned into a decade of familyhood and movie martial malaise.

In an effort to stoke their erstwhile sexual sparks, Jay and Annie decide record their three-hour romp through “The Joy of Sex” on Jay’s iPad. Unfortunately, Jay forgets to delete the video, and utter contrivance intercedes when a syncing app uploads the risque recording to a passel of other iPads gifted to various friends and family.

In the real world, an app able to accomplish such an online syncing process would also be capable of deleting uploaded files remotely from their source. Of course, that process would take about 30 seconds. Instead, Jay and Annie frantically spend all night—and the bulk of the film—chasing down the now tawdry tablets, including a visit to best friends Robbie and Tess (Rob Corddry and  Ellie Kemper, a much funnier pair than the lead duo) and Hank (Lowe), a CEO hoping to buy Annie’s mommy blog as the face of his family friendly company.

Moreover, when someone extorts Jay by threatening to upload his video to an online porn website, a sane person would contact the website and formally request them to block and/or remove the improperly obtained recording. In Sex Tape, Jay and Annie pile their moppets into the family SUV, then use it to ram their way into the site’s corporate headquarters in order to take an axe to its servers.

There’s precious little spark between Segel and Diaz, and most of the script is the sort of forced shock dialogue that actually makes us think less of our protagonists. There’s not a truly funny or believable moment in all of Sex Tape, down to our eventual glimpse of the actual tape, which was ostensibly filmed with a stationary iPad yet somehow contains multiple camera angles. Well, there’s one believable moment: when Hank and Annie share lines of cocaine, Lowe and Diaz’s portrayals suggest some prior personal experience. Just Google “Rob Lowe and ….,” well, you get the idea.

The Way, Way Back

Grade: B -

Directors: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

Starring: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Liam James, Sam Rockwell, AnnaSophia Robb, Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet and Maya Rudolph

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 43 min.

The Hollywood assembly line is just as geared to churn out faux-indie dramatic comedies as another sight & sound show about fighting robots. Although (or Because) The Way, Way Back debuted at January’s Sundance Film Festival, even its late July release date is transparently strategic: late enough to avoid the summer box office behemoths, late enough in the year that it won’t be totally forgotten once awards time rolls around, but far enough removed from November and December that it won’t get capsized by higher quality film fare.

Still, just because something is mass-produced—whether it’s food, cars or movies—doesn’t mean it can’t also be enjoyable. And in the wake of a summer season filled with sequels of the week, superheroes, zombies and Johnny Depp wearing a freakin’ crow on his head, a serviceable coming-of-age dramedy, no matter how generic, is a welcome diversion.

It’s a tumultuous time for 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James), who is conscripted to spend the summer with his divorced mother Pam (Toni Collette) at the Massachusetts beach house of her new boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carrell), and Trent’s catty teenage daughter Stephanie. On the ride down, Trent rates Duncan’s current life worthiness at three on a 10-point scale, effectively establishing both Trent’s passive-aggressive churlishness and his strained relationship with Duncan.

It’s no small irony that the name of Trent’s cottage is “Riptide,” as a morass of conflicting psychological forces rules this roost. The mood gets no better once Trent’s circle of friends comes calling, including Betty (Allison Janney), the boozy flibbertigibbet neighbor, and Kip (Rob Corddry) and Joan (Amanda Peet), Trent’s equally shallow pals.

Isolated and ostracized at every turn, the dour Duncan finds solace in two places. First is Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb), Betty’s strikingly grounded daughter, who takes an instant liking to her newfound neighbor. The other is Water Wizz, an area aquatic park where Duncan takes furtive bike rides to work and hang out with Owen (Sam Rockwell), one of the park’s longtime employees and resident wiseacre.

Making their directorial debuts, writers Nat Faxon and North Carolina native Jim Rash—both last seen winning an Oscar for their screenplay for “The Descendants”—reportedly drew on their own childhood experiences to craft their latest script. But, there’s also a snapshot of This Boy’s Life, a morsel of Meatballs and a layover in Adventureland. Moreover, from the adult actors’ ages to the conspicuously 80s soundtrack, the film seems more fixated on the arrested development of this group of Generation Xers facing their midlife crossroads.

It’s a sledgehammer of a metaphor that Water Wizz serves as Duncan’s personal oasis away from the rest of his complicated life. Given the neuroses enveloping Duncan’s home life, it’s comforting that Owen’s friendship lacks any ulterior motive, and that Susanna’s fondness comes without strings or wavering.

Nevertheless, James plays the latest iteration of a young actor’s role familiarized by Anton Yelchin/Josh Peck/Logan Lerman/Reece Thompson/etc. (Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera are two of the few members of this club to separate themselves from the pack). However, Owen is a role tailor-made for Rockwell, who is given the meatiest dialogue and reciprocates with the one performance that awards voters are most likely to remember from way, way back in July.

*Orginally published at INDYWeek.com

Warm Bodies

Even in a post-apocalyptic future,

you'll end up next to this in the $5 bin at Walmart

Grade: C
Director: Jonathan Levine
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton, Rob Corddry, Dave Franco and John Malkovich
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hr. 37 min.

It takes more than Kensington Gore to make a good monster movie, and it takes more than spackling your film with Shakespearean tropes to lend it Meaning™. Warm Bodies tries to have to both ways, along with harvesting the teen romantic-comedy market for good measure. Isaac Marion’s source novel of the same name was published in late 2011, an important fact in nailing down its sundry pop-cultural influences. It’s Romeo & Juliet meets The Walking Dead meets Twilight meets a steaming pile of rotting entrails.

Our narrator is a zombie named R (Nicholas Hoult)—as in Romeo, get it?—who falls for a girl named Julie (Teresa Palmer)—as in Juliet, get it?—and has a best friend named M (Rob Corddry)—as in...oh, forget it. There’s also a scene where R appears below Julie’s balcony. But while R and Julie’s respective tribes don’t get along, it has less to do with family squabbling and more to do with the fact that R’s undead pals want to feast on Julie and the last vestiges of humankind.

But R is unusual, starting with the fact that while he can’t talk, sleep, dream or do anything but amble around all day waiting for a dollop of viscera to fall his way, he can provide an entirely articulate, introspective voice over narration. While on food patrol one day, R and his buddies happen upon a band of gun totting 20-somethings, including Julie and her boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco). R munches on Perry’s brains, allowing R to absorb and envision Perry’s memories, which are projected somewhat miraculously in two-shot and multi-angle imagery. R becomes infatuated with Julie and sneaks her to his home, an abandoned 747 parked on the tarmac of a derelict airport.

Never mind the fact that R chowed down on Julie's boo—his tousled hair and ‘80s vinyl record collection, when combined with a heady dose of Stockholm Syndrome, is all that’s required for her to go gaga. In return, R starts experiencing some special feelings that spread to the rest of his carnivorous clan the first time they glimpse R and Julie holding hands.

Director Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness) aims to imbue this romance with some sidelong commentary about our disconnected society. But limiting ourselves to the zombie genre, that was done better and more satirically in just the opening half-hour of Shaun of the Dead. All Warm Bodies does is offer up such puzzling queries as why these zombies are the slow-moving George Romero kind at the beginning of the film but the frenzied 28 Days Later variety by the end. Why is ‘80s rock, record players and Polaroid instant cameras featured prominently alongside iPods, Blu-ray and convertible BMWs? What is the power source for R’s airplane and the moving walkways at the zombie-populated airport? Since R is already dead, why does Julie constantly refer to the threat of him “dying” or getting “killed,” including at the hands of her ramrod, freedom-fighting father (John Malkovich)?

Levine shoots the film in a drab grayscale; apologists would say this is to capture the look of a post-apocalyptic tableau when its true intent is avoiding the sort of vivid imagery that would usually carry with it an R-rating instead of the tepid PG-13 the filmmakers clearly wanted. Moreover, if you’re going to foist Romeo & Juliet, then have the courage of your literary conceit and embrace its tragic story arc. Put these together, and Warm Bodies is the thing you’d least expect: bloodless.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Really Gross Pointe Blank

Grade: C +

Director: Steve Pink

Starring: John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, and Clark Duke

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Back in 1985, those who grew-up during the 1950s were embarking on their Hollywood ascendancy, and out of the collective experiences and creative spirit of Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Steven Spielberg and others came the time-travel touchstone Back to the Future.

A quarter-century later, the children of the 1980s are now the ones making movies for the masses. So, it is little surprise to see Hot Tub Time Machine, a nostalgic jaunt back to the time of Ronald Reagan, parachute pants, and neon-colored leg-warmers. A trio of childhood friends struggle to cope with the paths their adult lives have taken. Adam (John Cusack) is an insurance salesman whose estranged wife has just taken half. Nick (Craig Robinson) abandoned his musical ambitions long ago in exchange for becoming a husband who took his wife’s name and a job in a pet store giving dog enemas. And, Lou (Rob Corddry) is a whiskey-swilling loser who forgets to turn off his car inside the garage while jamming out to Mötley Crüe.

The ensuing carbon monoxide poisoning lands Lou in the hospital, where the three amigos, joined by Adam’s geeky nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke), decide to take a wistful road trip back to the Colorado resort of their youth. The dilapidated lodge they find today, however, is a far cry from their heady salad days.

A drunken, drug-fueled dip in a hot tub somehow teleports the four back to 1986, where they must balance the urge to right past wrongs with the need to prevent some butterfly effect that will topple mountains or thwart John Elway’s “Drive” in the AFC championship against the Browns.

If nothing else, Hot Tub Time Machine already ranks among films whose notoriety endures by virtue of their names alone, a list that includes Dude, Where's My Car? and Snakes on a Plane. Still, it is less a fond love letter to a particular cultural time and place than a slapdash nod to the epoch’s cinema. The allusions to Back to the Future are so obvious and pervasive that the film feels like a Scary Movie-type parody. The hot tub is the proverbial DeLorean; Jacob is shocked by seeing his mother as a fast and loose teenager; Nick revives his dormant love for music by climbing onstage to entertain a crowd with one “oldie” (“Jessie’s Girl”) and a future hit (the Black Eyed Peas’ “Let’s Get It Started”); Lou must confront the bully whose beating caused emotional scarring and triggered decades of failure; one character amasses a fortune thanks to his knowledge of future events, including the outcomes of sporting events (okay, that’s from Back to the Future Part II, but you get the point). Crispin Glover – Marty McFly himself – even makes an appearance playing a bellboy destined for dismemberment.

For good measure, Chevy Chase wanders through mumbling a few unfunny lines as a deus ex machina fit-it man, a character blatantly patterned after Don Knotts in Pleasantville and Christopher Walken in Click. All that said, the problem with Hot Tub Time Machine is not its derivative underpinning. The foul-mouthed, hyperactive script – a little of Corddry goes a long way – fuses the reflective remembrances of youth with a modern-day Hangover raunch-fest that manages to conceive sight-gags involving every bodily fluid and excretion. Wit quickly gives way to weary juvenilia, casual kitsch to crassness. And, it is made all the uglier by director Steve Pink’s crummy cinematography and sloppy sound mixing that manages to drown out one quip after another.

And, would somebody please explain this: In a movie starring John Cusack that is so steeped in 1980s cinema, how did they NOT include a scene in which Adam/Cusack woos his future wife by holding a boombox over his head playing “In Your Eyes?”

Neil Morris