Hot Tub Time Machine Not So Hot

With a Snakes On a Plane-quality title and an all-star lineup (John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry and, yes, Chevy Chase), Hot Tub Time Machine could have been a great, bad film. But critics aren't buying this "baldfaced attempt to send The Hangover back to the future." They're not even laughing:

• "I'm all for dumb fun", says Rolling Stone's Peter Travers. "But the warmed-over Hot Tub Time Machine forgets it takes smarts to do stupid right."
• The movie "seems almost wilfully to squander every opportunity for greatness or even sort-of-goodness," writes Dana Stevens for Slate.

• "Jokes about and the appearance of bodily fluids are not inherently funny," says Beliefnet's Nell Minnow. "On the other hand, if you disagree, you will love this movie."
• Hot Tub "is finally brought down by the inescapable fact that it is neither as smart as it thinks it is nor as dumb," writes Peter Sobczynski for eFlimCritic.com
• And, from the Journal Sentinel's Sue Pierman: "Hot Tub Time Machine proves that just because you have the power and money to make a movie, it doesn't mean you should."

(More Chevy Chase stories.)