Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015)

** out of ****

I have to admit, “Hot Tub Time Machine” was one of the most wonderful surprises of 2010 for me. Being roughly the same age as the primary characters, all the references and associations the movie made about 1986 had me in stitches. Add to that the absolutely reeeeee-diculous characters and dialogue, I spent a good half the time in tears from laughing so hard. Lightning in a bottle for sure.

But as is so often the case in movies, they decided they could reimagine it and catch the same lightning again. So let me first say they have failed, and failed miserably. It isn't nearly as clever or hysterically funny as the original. However, being a big fan of idiot behavior, I have to admit the sheer stupidity of the lead characters left me laughing and mildly entertained.

This is a bad movie. But it's a GOOD bad movie. “Evil Dead 2” or “Drop Dead Fred” kind of good bad movie. No attempt is made to legitimize the film, just to have the dumbass characters say dumbass funny things throughout. For instance, there is a scene where the leads are looking in a mirror and seeing themselves as they will look in 10 years. I was dying over some of the comments:

“You look like Gandalf the poor.”

“You look like the least-popular kid in the cancer ward.”

“You look like you've never made a correct decision.”

“Ever.”

“I have definitely given a back alley blowjob.”

So Lou (Rob Corddry), Nick (Craig Robinson) and Jacob (Clark Duke) travel 10 years into the future to stop an assassin from coming back in time and killing Lou. Conspicuously absent is John Cusack's “Adam”, but I guess his career is still too good to commit to a clearly bad film. They get into lots of utterly silly misadventures, but their incessant insulting dialogue keeps it funny throughout.

I'm not going to lie – if you don't laugh at Beavis and Butthead, the Jackass movies or David Letterman's Stupid Human Tricks, you won't get much out of this movie. But if you do, you will laugh and even though you'll agree it's a very bad movie, you'll watch it every time it pops up on AMC in a few years.

Yeah, it's one of those.