That’s him on the far right.
So far, despite 65ish% ratings on Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, a lot of the country’s most respected critics actually seem to kind of like “Hot Tub Time Machine,” the first starring role for Glenwood’s Clark Duke.
Here’s a quick round-up:
I can’t be sure, but I think the density of the f-word reaches the saturation point in ‘Hot Tub Time Machine.’ I may have heard it employed as three different parts of speech in the same sentence. One wonders if American-spoken English could survive without it. What did we say in the old days? It must have been a quiet land.
The bottom line is, gross-out guy comedies open twice a month, and many of them are wretched excesses. “Hot Tub Time Machine,” which wants nothing more than to be a screwball farce, succeeds beyond any expectations suggested [Roger Ebert, Three Stars]
If you are a connoisseur of sexual, scatological or just plain stupid humor, you will find your appetite satisfied, even glutted. But viewers of a certain age and background — let’s say those who know the lyrics to “Jesse’s Girl” by heart, even if they never really liked that song — are likely to endure the merry anarchy with a twinge of pained, slightly nauseated nostalgia. [A.O. Scott, NY Times. Scott describes Duke as “looking like a younger, less smug version of the Apple scapegoat and ersatz know-it-all John Hodgman” and ends his review with, “It’s fun, it’s sad, and it’s kind of sad that it’s so much fun,” which Metacritic translates into a perfect score.]
Duke could be Rainn Wilson’s weird younger brother, he has the same off-center charm. [Betsy Sharkey, LA Times, in a similarly positive review]
But much of the story hinges on character actors Rob Corddry and Clark Duke, who overdo everything with a shrillness that makes the movie’s crass jokes and gags all the more obnoxious — and a lot less funny than they might have been. [David Germain, AP. Burn]