There are few things that can get me out of blogging dormancy, and one of those is a free ticket to a movie that doesn’t come out for over a month. Tonight I attended a pre-release screening of Hot Tub Time Machine at the Bow-Tie Cinemas in Hartford, CT. I went into this screening with little knowledge of the film and no expectations, but I left with plenty to say.

Hot Tub Time Machine is an ensemble bromance that combines the throwback setting of Anchorman, the biting barbs of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the oddball mission of Old School, the awkward repartee of Superbad, the time travel of Back to the Future, and the obligatory musical number present in every Apatow-esque film made in the last six years. Not to say that’s a bad thing.

Director Steve Pink (Accepted) and writers Josh Heald, Andrew Mogel, and Jarrad Paul knew exactly who they were going to rip off and how. But just as George Lucas ripped off Kurosawa, Pink was able to make the film his own while giving a wink and a nod to his influences. A brief squirrel cameo (you’ll know when you see it) serves as a tip of the cap to Judd Apatow.

The premise of the film is heartfelt, Rob Corddry’s Lou has been hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt and it’s up to his long-separated friends Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson) to take care of him. With Adam’s nerdy, basement-dwelling nephew Jacob (Clark Duke, channeling the main cast of Superbad) they decide on a vacation to their high school getaway, only to find the winter wonderland has been reduced to a ghost town. After a night of hotel room debauchery (and a banned Russian energy drink) our heroes find themselves transported back to 1986.

Robert Zemeckis will be calling for royalties for this conceit as it features time travelers going back in time to deal with period-stereotyped teenagers, a character that will disappear if the past is changed (Jacob), a crazy old man giving instructions (Chevy Chase), and the ageless Crispin Glover playing the same character in two different decades. Again, Pink knows who to rip off and how. The film is period perfect; its neon colors and pop culture displays will bring anyone who grew up in the 80s back to the decade where big hair ruled.

As the main characters weave their way through the tricky task of messing with the space-time continuum they find themselves dealing with personal problems that two decades can’t detach them from. Adam pines over “the one that got away,” Nick is a cuckold, Lou is an alcoholic, and Jacob is a technology nerd. In between gross-out physical humor and back-and-forth insults each tries to find a way to overcome.

Cusack does what he does best, playing the attractive yet lovable loser who mercurially switches between doe-eyed love and woe-is-me depression. His comedic timing is High Fidelity-perfect. Corddry shows a depth that I’ve personally never seen in him before. Robinson, who everyone I know calls “the black guy from Pineapple Express” uses his range as an actor to show that he’s more than just a third wheel. Unfortunately for Duke, who gets some of the best lines in the film, he comes off as a poor-man’s Jonah Hill. His similar style and physique will keep the comparisons rolling in, though Duke’s comedic delivery is less mean-spirited than Hill’s.

The supporting cast is fantastic, as Chevy Chase and Crispin Glover each bring their own brand of weird to the film. Memorable characters like the boozing Kelly (Collette Wolfe), a group of typical 80s bullies (albeit gripped with terror from the Red Scare), and a mysterious girl that could change the future (Lizzy Caplan) help round out the ensemble cast. And of course, the musical numbers (ranging from the 80s to the 00s) are well timed and hilarious. Robinson’s performances especially stand out.

On the negative side, the film is a month away from being final and suffered from some post-production woes. The special effects weren’t polished but weren’t at Wolverine Origins levels. It didn’t take away from the film, but anyone with an eye for CGI could tell something was up. I expect that to be fixed in the final release.

Despite a premise and characters that seem to come from other films, Hot Tub Time Machine stands out on its own as a funny, sometimes crude, sometimes touching film that tried to end on a thought-provoking note. What if you could change the past? Alright, that notion isn’t very original either. But I think it’s able to put a unique spin on time travel that we haven’t seen since Marty McFly went eighty-eight miles per hour.

Long story short, if I didn’t get in for free I would’ve gladly paid to see it (tip: bring friends, it’s a social film) and will be a DVD purchase for me in the future. One day, when the Apatow effect wears off, Hot Tub Time Machine may be seen as the last good comedy film to perfect the formula.

Vince’s Rating: *** out of 4 stars
MPAA Rating R for language, drug use, brief nudity, bright 80s neon, and Chevy Chase being an asshole.