The powers that be are temping the fates with their treatment of Hot Tub Time Machine. Though the film doesn't hit screens until next week it's been rolling across the continent for a string of advance promo screenings with no gags at all on the press and producers openly courting calls of "this year's The Hangover". And while I can certainly understand why they would want to be this year's Hangover they just aren't.

John Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson play a trio of lifelong friends now in their early forties and not particularly happy. Corddry's Lou may or may not have just tried to kill himself and so Cusack's Adam and Robinson's Nick pack their hard drinking buddy up for a soothing weekend trip to the ski resort where they spent most of their finest, youthful moments.  Sour note number one comes when Adam's nephew (Clark Duke) ends up tagging along. Sour note number two comes when they discover that the resort town they all loved as teens has turned into a run down wreck. Then they get into their hot tub and it magically takes them back to their 80s prime.

The problem here isn't the goofy premise - the eighties were a pretty goofy time - or the level of gross out comedy - which is plenty.  No, for the issues look elsewhere.  First of all, when regular Cusack cohort Steve Pink - writer of both High Fidelity and Grosse Point Blank - was brought in to direct he should also have been given control of the script. Because he would have made it an awful lot better.

But even the often clunky script isn't really the problem. No, the problem lies with one core member of the cast. Cusack could do this stuff in his sleep and is just fine. Robinson builds nicely on his Office success.  Clark Duke is probably the best and funniest of the core four and Crispin Glover is hysterical in a key support role. That Chevy Chase is not even remotely worth a chuckle hasn't been news for decades now and he's not in the movie nearly enough to spoil it, so by process of elimination, that leaves Rob Corddry.

If you, like me, found Corddry's shtick wore thin in two-minute segments on The Daily Show then be warned: it doesn't get any better over and hour and a half.  Not only is he not funny here - the only big laugh Lou gets belongs to the effects team, not Corddry - but he is also intensely unlikeable. Why the hell are these guys doing anything at all to help Lou in the first place? He's a douche. A big douche. And, from the sounds of things, he always has been. It's not middle aged malaise in his case, Lou is suffering from a lifelong case of assholishness and almost every time he's on screen the humor just dries up. And, unfortunately, he's the guy at the center of the story.

You see, what made The Hangover, in my opinion, the best American comedy since The 40 Year Old Virgin was that you actually really liked all of these guys. They had their issues, yes, but you could recognize them and empathize with them even as things spiraled out of control. Hot Tub Time Machine, on the other hand, immediately loses some of the intimacy that comes with the 'that could be me' factor by playing the 80s as an easy parody of the period and then compounds the problem by anchoring the story on a guy that nobody anywhere, any time, would ever want to identify themselves with.

Does it have its share of funny moments? Yeah, it does. There are a decent number of good, solid laughs scattered throughout with most coming from the side players. It'll probably have a decent opening and make somebody somewhere a tidy little profit. But this tub ain't hot. It's just kind of tepid. And when the film is quickly forgotten that'll mostly be Corddry's fault.