The onslaught of awful often associated with a comedy’s big “2” provides little incentive for moviegoers to continue participating in its production. Unlike their comic-book counterparts, comedy sequels, three-quels and beyond are typically terrible to watch, embarrassing for actors and only so-so for business. But in an age where franchise is king, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 wriggled its way into theaters five years after the prototype, and delivers an unexpected surprise. Director Steve Pink and screenwriter Josh Heald return with a rollicking sequel that is somehow so much more than just a punctual prediction about a certain Daily Show correspondent.
When again we meet the gang, each has taken occupational and financial advantage of the hot tub portal, with a couple round-trips from past to present earning them money, power and glory. Lou (Rob Corddry), now the founder of Internet kingpin “Lougle” and myriad other wildly lucrative tech enterprises, is a rampant billionaire. He runs his meetings, hosts his parties and drinks his drugs like a modern-day Jordan Belfort, though his zesty lifestyle is still bogged down by substance addiction and suicidal tendencies. Nick (Craig Robinson) enjoys unrivaled success in the music business as a regular banger mill, pumping out chart-toppers and running the Top 40 spectrum with a decade’s worth of unreleased hits stolen from the likes of Lisa Loeb and the Black-Eyed Peas. Jacob (Clark Duke) is the voice of reason and forever flustered, Duke’s Arkansan accent kissing his dialogue with an equal dose of both purity and snark.
Trouble comes during a party at Lou’s mansion in the form of a vengeful gunman, when a fatal, phallic and long-foreshadowed trigger is pulled. To go back, find the culprit and rectify the situation before it happens, the trio must once again summon the titular hot tub—only this time, the all-knowing tub sends them 10 years into the future.
Missing in the sequel is Adam Yates (John Cusack), Lou’s brother and labored hero. Cusack, long a likely actor of unlikely heroes, knew Pink years ago from his work on Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity, for which Pink wrote both the screenplays. Cusack filled the Hot Tub spotlight as he does most all his movies, acting the lovelorn Eeyore persona saved by a trademark shade of cool. Introducing the idiotic premise—a hot tub that allows for time travel, whose powers are triggered mostly (though not exclusively) by stripping down naked and getting hammered drunk in it, a power known only by Chevy Chase, who is some sort of mystical time shaman/janitor—with a recognizable character and his conventional narrative storyline anchored the film to a more fully fleshed out, if still threadbare plot. Despite what the 2010 release’s box office numbers indicated, it was probably Cusack who helped earn audiences’ trust, as well a gradual cult following. In other words, Cusack made a sequel possible.