I’m giving a 2.5 star quality film 3 stars just because of John Cusack.

This film is about finding friendship again once its been lost.

Adam (John Cusack), Lou (Rob Corddry), and Nick (Craig Robinson) were best friends during their hay day in the 80′s and their friendship suffered a falling out (that was never revealed). The movie opens highlighting the low-lights of their lives (Adam’s live-in girlfriend has left him and moved out, Nick performs procedures on dog’s nether regions for his degrading job at ‘Sup Dawg,’ and Lou is a jerk) when they discover Lou has tried to kill himself by keeping the car running in the garage with the door closed while rocking out to some 80′s tune. The others learn of his accident and are all brought together and when Lou discovers he’s going to survive he gets a new lease on life and coerces Adam and Nick into taking a trip with him to their old stomping grounds, a ski resort in a run-down town. Adam’s nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke) tags along with Adam and gets to learn all about their history. They wind up staying in the same room they had rented so long ago (down to even finding a lewd carving in the bottom of a drawer) when they stumble upon the hot tub outside their room. It, of course, is non-functioning and complete with decaying raccoon carcass, but the workers of the hotel quickly fix it up and they begin stripping down and partying in the tub. Cut to a quick montage of drunken debauchery, and they spill some Russian energy drink into the mechanics, and they all wake up in the morning in the tub, miraculously not frozen to death despite the snow on the ground. They set out to begin their day when they are stunned by day-glo colored clothing, crazy hair styles, and some of the best awful music you’ve ever heard. That’s right, they stepped right back into a weekend during the winter of 1986 that they had spent at the resort.

Of course, they decide in order to avoid altering the future (read: the butterfly effect), they have to relive their weekend the exact same way they did in ’86 until Chevy Chase can fix their tub so they can return to the future. Jacob, of course, finds this idea great as he realizes he hasn’t even been conceived at this point in history so he spends his weekend not enjoying the wonders that are the 1980′s, but rather chasing after Adam, Lou, and Nick to ensure they accomplish this goal as he’s afraid if they alter history at all,  he won’t be conceived. He runs into his mother (Back to the Future, anyone?) and finds she was quite the party girl, which explains why he never knew who his father was.

As it turns out, their weekend in ’86 wasn’t that great. Adam broke up with his girlfriend and got stabbed in the eye with a fork, Lou got the tar beat out of him while waiting for his friends to show up, and Nick…had a date. Because Adam didn’t want to get stabbed, Lou didn’t want to get beat up, and Nick didn’t want to cheat on his wife (even you, as you find out, she had already cheated on him and technically in ’86 she was 9 years old), they decide to fix their weekend so it better suited them. This, of course, doesn’t bode well for Jacob’s existence and he is quite upset. The friends begin getting agitated with each other, but, of course, this is all rectified later on with a new respect for their friendship and why they were friends in the first place.

This movie wasn’t awful. I went into it with very low expectations, and wasn’t completely surprised, but it does have it’s moments (and a really great soundtrack). It’s got a lot of cheap laughs and some actual funny parts, but for the most part it’s pretty low-brow. I feel like they did a disservice to the era that was the ’80s. There were some really great ’80′s tunes and a few t-shirts with oversized lettering (no Frankie Say Relax!?), but where was the Madonna? Billy Idol? Tears for Fears, A-Ha, the great Hair Bands of Yore?! They could have gone a lot deeper into the ’80s theme in my opinion. When I think of the ’80s I definitely think of the above plus much, much more. This was more about their own personal accounts that weekend than it was about giving the audience a great nostalgia trip into one of the greatest decades in history.

I don’t quite understand why John Cusack was involved in this movie. His acting was not equal to his usual unrequited-love type roles. Maybe there just isn’t anything available for him at this point, but I feel like he’s trying to ride the coat tails of Jud Apatow/Seth Rogen/Jonah Hill-esque comedies that are so huge right now. I thought he was above all that, and I do still feel the same way about him (my love for Lloyd Dobler is unfaltering), I just truly feel like his unnecessary foul mouth and dirty jokes were not him, but someone else. I will recommend this film if you’re looking for pure cheap laughs and absolutely no thought. It did keep my entertainment for the duration, but that’s about it. If you’re looking for something heartfelt and with lots of thought…this is not going to be it.