Hot tub time machine

Once upon a time, in 1985, a very good comic fantasy was produced in Hollywood. It was Back to the Future, featuring a memorable performance by Crispin Glover as George McFly. In 2010, US movie producers decided to re-invent that wheel, a lot more cheaply. They called it Hot Tub Time Machine.

This time, a down-on-his-luck affable bloke from the Present (John Cusack) goes back to the Past (1985) and takes his nerdish nephew and a pair of down-on-their-luck middle-aged buddies with him. Just in case middle-aged members of the audience don't get the point of the plot, Crispin Glover appears as a one-armed hotel bellboy and the bad guys' dialogue refers to a McFly. Glover must be relieved he also got a real acting part recently (Alice in Wonderland).

Steve Pink, the movie's director, worked with Cusack on screenplays of High Fidelity (2000) and Grosse Point Blank (1997). He co-produced both (and recently made the Cruise-Dias vehicle, Knight and Day). He and Cusack employed three newish comedy writing talents to develop the idea credited to one of them (Josh Heald). In it, the quartet of male misfits are thrust back in time during a drunken dip in a faulty jacuzzi at a rundown ski resort. Older audience members will know it's a time-machine farce because Chevy Chase waddles on as the jacuzzi repairman.

How to get potential audiences to go to their local multiplex? First, get the blacks, with TV's Craig Robinson from The Office. Then, target foul-mouthed intellectuals with Rob Corddry of TV's Children's Hospital and Daily Show. Youngish parents will know the comic value of Clark Duke, who's 25, looks 15, and child-starred in 54 episodes of Heart's Afire.

The kids market? Toss in dog turds, vomit projectiles, and jokey scenes featuring fucks, sucks and gays. The popcorn brigade love that stuff.

After all that, it's almost shameful to acknowledge that much of this HTTM rip-off is amusing. The female interests, bad guys and teenage versions of the lead actors are flimsy screen presences, but the lead foursome are appealingly obnoxious anti-heroes.