HOT TUB TIME MACHINE: flashback to a time when the future was still ahead of us

For anyone who came of age in the 1980s the experience of watching HOT TUB TIME MACHINE is very similar to going back in time ourselves to that decade (were we able to).
Chances are we'd discover that our rose-tinted memories don't quite match up with the reality, leaving us with a slight sense of disappointment. 

As someone who did come of age in the 80s and associates the decade with great music, fun times, the making of friendships that have lasted to this day, and the feeling of a wide open future, I was expecting a lot from this film - probably too much.
I was hoping that it would allow me to relive - at least for 90 minutes - an era which meant so much to me on so many levels. What I got was the mildly (very mildly) pleasant experience of revisiting the 80s through the eyes of an American my age. Although I spent a fair amount of time in the USA during the 80s via vacations and an undergraduate exchange program, I didn't share the film's cultural touchstones - especially the music
The songs that we listened to in our late teens and early twenties can conjure up powerful, intangible, sensations of that time and place and, frankly, Poison doesn't do it for me. US youth's obsession with those hideous preening hair bands meant they missed out on a lot of the good stuff that us Brits were listening to.
So, instead of providing me with a portal to revisit my youth I feel like I'm tagging along on a nostalgia roadtrip organised by one of my American friends. It's less than I'd hoped, but that's ok because there's enough points of common interest that I'll still have a good time - right?  
Well, yes and no. 
I liked that the 80s references and iconography are inserted into the story more organically than, say, "The Wedding Singer" which relentlessly bombarded us with them. But perversely, this admirable restraint on the part of the film's makers left me unsatisfied. I wanted more, I wanted to be bombarded, perhaps because the more 80s stuff they threw on the screen the greater the chance was that I'd find things to identify with.
But what I was most disappointed with was the humour. HOT TUB TIME MACHINE wants desperately to be "The Hangover" but it's not because it's just not funny enough. There's plenty of appreciative smiles and the odd chuckle to be had, but it's lacking the all important laugh-out- loud moments that made "The Hangover" such a memorable cinematic experience. It's not the fault of John Cusack and his co-stars. They do their best with the material they've been given, but it's beyond their talents to make a silk purse out of this particular sow's ear. However Chevy Chase is a major disappointment. Why cast a famous comedian in a cameo and then not give him any funny lines?
The rhythm of the story also suffers from what feels like bad editing. My sense is that HOT TUB TIME MACHINE was originally a longer film that's been cut down, possibly in the interests of length or pacing. Whatever the reason it's resulted in some uncomfortable and awkward cuts in the flow of the storytelling. I strongly suspect that there's a longer 'director's cut' waiting to be released on dvd.
Not as bad as it might have been but certainly nowhere near as good as it could have been, I'm still waiting for the definitive cinematic trip back to the most important decade of my life.