Time travel movies are very hard to pull off. There are so many rules established by previous movies, not to mention a little something called the “space-time continuum” that make it a bit difficult to make a believable time travel flick. Thankfully, Hot Tub Time Machine is nowhere near realistic and seems to make up its own set of rules as it goes along.

The story follows three best friends: Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Lou (Rob Corddry). After Lou has an accident that is mistaken for a suicide attempt, his two friends and their nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) decide to cheer him up by taking him on a weekend getaway to an old ski resort that used be one of their favorite party spots growing up. After another accident in the resort’s hottub changes it into a time machine, the four of them find themselves back in Winterfest ’86 with a chance to relive their past. The only catch is that they must relive everything exactly as they originally experienced it in order to not affect the future/present they came from.

That is pretty much the story in a nutshell. While the movie deals with the theme of time travel, it conveniently side steps many of the pre-established time travel rules from other films. For instance, the old rule that your future self and your past self can never occupy the same space is thrown out the window. The future versions actually replace their past selves. When ever anyone sees them, they are seeing the younger versions of the characters. The other rule about changing the past is pretty much scrapped also. While at first they try to leave the past as unaltered as possible, there comes a point where the characters just decide to change whatever they want to change at will.

While these minor details don’t really hurt the movie, the real star is the 80s setting. Anyone who grew up in the 80s or is at least familiar with the era will find alot to enjoy about this film. The entire movie is just filled with old school references and it is hilarious to see how much things have changed from a decade that really doesn’t seem like it was too long ago.

The cast is overall pretty solid. John Cusack plays the love sick regular guy role to a tee, something that he has had the chance to perfect as he has portrayed this same character countless times in his career. Craig Robinson is hilarious in the movie, but I can’t help but feel that his performance is a bit toned down, even for him. Clark Duke is great as the young voice of reason among the 4 of them. Expect to see Duke in more and more films starting with Kick Ass, due out this week. Then there is Rob Cordrry, who plays Lou the likeable asshole of the group. It is nice to see Cordrry in a role where he can finally be as offensive and vulgar as he wants to be.

The film is a fun walk down memory lane with some solid laughs thrown in. I was a little disappointed by the humor in this movie. The movie is very funny but nowhere near the laugh a minute fest that the previews or the movie’s title would have you believe that it is. Still, this is a funny movie and most of its appeal ccomes from just reliving the 80s through the eyes of the characters.