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Review: ‘Hot Tub Time Machine 2’ a peppy spray of hit-and-run humor

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Experts recommend frequent cleaning of the hot harvest of bacteria that is a well-used Jacuzzi. Fans plopping into the energetically crass petri swamp of male-humiliation and body-dysfunction humor that is “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” however, surely aren’t hoping for a sanitized experience.

And yet this sequel to the 2010 comedy about time-transported losers, with returning writer Josh Heald and director Steve Pink, is a noticeably peppier romp, with the gang — hedonistic jerk Lou (Rob Corddry), bearish wallflower Nick (Craig Robinson) and Lou’s nerdy son Jacob (Clark Duke) — journeying into 2025 to save Lou from … oh, does it matter?

What counts are agreeably surreal jokes about the future (homicidal smart cars, exponentially more disturbing reality TV), the absence of professional killjoy John Cusack — a condescending weight lifted — and the addition of Adam Scott, who charms easily as Cusack’s character’s son, a cheery innocent corrupted through his adventures with the other three.

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“HTTM” is one of the few raunch franchises (“Anchorman” is another) openly honest about finding the willing descent of dissatisfied, near-suicidal males endlessly funny. But where that MO turned the first film irredeemably sour and misogynistic, it’s more merrily self-referential here, and doesn’t hijack the generally loopy tone. (One way to pare the women-hating: Ignore them almost entirely!)

Ultimately, “2” is hit-and-run humor as hit or miss as any comedy of its ilk. If one has to sit in front of a jet spray of degradation gags, better it feel like the occasional seltzer spritz than a fire hose blast to the crotch.

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‘Hot Tub Time Machine 2’

Rated: R for crude sexual content, language, graphic nudity, drug use, violence.

Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Playing: In wide release

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