Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015)

Elevator Pitch: Lou Dorchen, the one of the four friends who decided to stay in the past at the end of HTTM 1, is a billionaire due to his search engine Loogle and is an objectionable man, who, at a party at his house is shot in the groin. His son Jacob and friend Nick drag him, dying to the hot tub, which has been moved to Lou’s mansion and they get in it and  are accidentally propelled to the future. Lou is undamaged and Jacob is the rich man. They go in search of the man with the shotgun thinking it must be Adam (the fourth member of the group who s not present), only to find Adam’s son living in his house. He is due to be married so the plot moves creakily in the direction of a climax at the wedding.

Content: There is one sex act, the participants fully clothed, one young woman is seen topless and a prolonged virtual TV game where one of the guys is required to appear to have anal sex with another.  There is a lot of boozing, some of it excessive. One loser from their past is a nightclub owner, so they spend a lot of time there. Nick the singer/song writer is disappointed to find that he is famous only for doing some sort of dance. Jacob, depressed, tries to commit suicide but is saved by a device invented in the future. Adam Jr, has a drug patch applied to his neck which changes his personality. 

A View: The first film was clever, funny and made an interesting use of time travel. This film’s adventure into the future  presents a more difficult challenge for its writers which they do not succeed in overcoming. Much of the story is developed for no other reason other than the explain the non- appearance of dam, since John Cusack is not a member of the cast. So in summary if you enjoyed the first film you will be disappointed in this outing. If you didn’t you’ll wonder what it is all about. 

There are a number of SF films out there which deal with time travel in an amusing way. Probably top of the heap is Back to the Future, and if you are only going to watch one, Back to the Future III contains all the necessary elements. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is surprisingly entertaining and finally try Retroactive, if you can find it.