The Genius of Hot Tub Time Machine

At first glance, the title of this post appears to be a poor attempt at an oxymoron, and maybe it is. How could a low-brow comedy with a name like Hot Tub Time Machine possess anything close to creative genius? Well, judging by its appearance on three screens at the local cinema, and it still selling out every show last night, the creative forces behind it must have some type of insight. The brilliance in the film doesn't come from the deadpan stylings of Craig Robinson or the charming vulgarity of Rob Corddry, although both more than hold their own. It comes from the movie's unwavering simplicity and complete lack of self-awareness.



It's safe to say that we are in the midst of a high-water mark in our culture's popular entertainment. At a time when other forms of media are dying or predicted to die at the undiscriminating hand of the internet, the television and motion picture industries are pleasing both fan and critic alike at a level not seen in 30 years.



There's a common thread that ties these new hit series and films together: these pieces purposefully create an intricate world, explaining away any doubts the viewer may have, and demanding the viewer be actively involved. Investigatory crime dramas dominate the weekly broadcast ratings. NCIS is consistently the number one show on television. The entertainment these shows provide is derived entirely from the viewer's implicit participation in the drama. The audience wants to figure out who the killer is, they want to do it before the heroes on the screen do, they want to save the day. These shows are very different from the standard Law & Order that peaked in the 1990's. An emphasis is now placed on the science and logic behind the pursuit of a suspect, rather than "gut" or the gritty experience of the protagonists. There are now ten dramas of this type on network television, and more are added every Fall season. CBS has gone so far as to base an entire series on the premise that a non-cop solves cases in The Mentalist, mirroring and enhancing the experience of the audience. The wrongdoers can never be discovered because they "looked good for it," or "something was off" with their story in the protagonists' estimation. Rather, every detail of their dastardly deed must be accounted for. However, the puzzle is never fully understood until some sort of cathartic exhortation is made by the guilty party, giving the protagonist and the viewer the security that at last, everything is accounted for.


Nowhere is this more evident than in the hit ABC series Lost. I will spare the exhaustive technical explanations provided for how the fantastic realm functions in the world of Lost, just know that they exist and are very very detailed. Lost is a show who's whole appeal is that it will explain the functionality and logic behind the mysterious happenings of the series. Characters die, then come back to life, but some don't! People travel threw time, new characters mysteriously appear as if out of thin air, there's time travel, there's alternate planes of existence. These plot points all seem rather extraordinary, you might enjoy Lost if you like that feeling. Oh...wait...no you won't, because the people behind the series need to jam down every arcane explanation of time travel and multi-dimensional theory as they can. The ridiculousness of this is of course that they are attempting to reduce the doubts of the viewer by resorting to the two most illogical/complex threads of science fiction and theoretical physics. It's as if they realize that they cannot provide a logical basis for the tale that they have woven, and are so uncomfortable with it, that they have intentionally cast a cloud of confusion over their audience. The better that they know not the real terrible secret of the island: that Lost is in fact a science fiction series.


Why this obsession with logic and explanation? A neurosis about the use of poetic license is pervasive in today's Hollywood. To the uninitiated, poetic license is that bit of room that we the audience give a storyteller or performer to allow them to be free of constraints so that they may tell a better story. Yes, we all know that conventional space travel is not possible at speeds higher than or even approaching light, but we let George Lucas get away with it because Star Wars would be pretty boring if it took half of the movie to travel from one planet to the next. It would also be a lot less cool or fun without that magical bit of the fantastic. The dreammakers in the media, but especially those behind Lost, have fetishized a lack of poetic license, as if the audience is "too smart for that." Poetic license has nothing to do with intelligence, it is much more a matter of faith or credit. Imagine a driver in the city. He stops every car he passes to present his operator's license from the RMV, along with the original of his licensing exam (marked, of course), and his insurance record. Society would come to a halt around him, and driving in that locale would be a lot less free or enjoyable. That's what Hollywood is doing to us. It's forcing us to study in order to enjoy a television show, it's infecting us with the germ of that neurosis.


I can laugh at The Big Bang Theory without knowing that every equation on the assorted blackboards and whiteboards that populate the characters' environments are balanced and are real-life theoretical physics statements. It's not important to me. It is, however, important for the writers and producers and directors of the series to make me know this, as they mention it in every interview or review. They could produce the series for a lot less work and a lot less money if they didn't employ a science czar for the production.


Hot Tub Time Machine is genius because it understands that you don't have to bat the audience over the head with obscure philosophical treatises or a text in theoretical physics to buy into a story and enjoy it. If the film has an explanation for the time travel aspect of the plot, it is that a mischievous squirrel knocked over a Russian energy drink into a hot tub's electronic controls. That is a lot funnier and simpler to get than anything the previous series have done, and it makes the film a lot less tedious and a lot more interesting. Consumers don't want to pass an exam before they watch the next episode of Lost or NCIS or any entertainment-they want to be lost in it.