Disgruntled 40-something pals John Cusack, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry attempt to rekindle the carousing days of their youth in this raucous comic fantasy. And thanks to (you guessed it) a certain "hot-tub time machine", they get the opportunity to replay the misadventures of 1986 with the benefit of added experience. While the film is loaded with 1980s nostalgia (including key cameos from Chevy Chase and Back to the Future's Crispin Glover), and gleefully reproduces the crass sexism of the era's teen flicks, there's actually more going on here than cheap retro-styled laughs. The central trio are positively plagued with midlife neuroses, bringing a measure of believability to the farcical complications of the time-travel conceit. Consequently, the film alternates between full-on crudeness and male menopausal insights. But sustaining consistent logic to the then-and-now plotting ultimately proves too much of a challenge. This is undeniably an amusing movie, but it falls well short of time-twisting comedy classics like Back to the Future and Groundhog Day.

Four pals are stuck in a rut in adulthood: Adam has just been dumped, Lou is a hopeless party animal, Nick is a henpecked husband, and Jacob does nothing but play video games in his basement. But they get a chance to brighten their future by changing their past after a night of heavy drinking in a ski-resort hot tub results in their waking up in 1986.