What seemed like a mere rip-off of Weird Science instead became one of the most uncomfortable, unfunny, and downright soul-destroying 86 minutes of the year. Two nerds, clearly patterned off the archetypes from Superbad, stumble upon a sex robot escaping the dirty-minded clutches of a senator (Larry Miller, why?). At first the boys think they’ve run over and killed a sexy lingerie-clad living Barbie, so they elect to take her back home to dispose of the corpse. This is also the part where the “Jonah Hill”-esque guy debates defiling her dead body… and this is before they know she’s a robot. The characters are powerfully unlikable but even worse are exasperatingly unfunny. The comedy is too often obvious and toothless, luxuriating in bad improv from actors given not enough of a script and far too much leeway. The vulgarity is lame and for a raunchy sex comedy the material is weirdly chaste, trying to insert a dissonant romance for our Hot Bot and nerd. The premise is so ripe for comedic potential that it’s almost baffling how much they blunder. It’s about as baffling as comprehending that this cheap-looking, sloppily executed dreck is made by the Polish brothers, a pair of indie auteurs responsible for much more thoughtful and adventurous cinema like Twin Falls Idaho and Northfolk. I didn’t know these guys were even capable of making something this bad and this pathetic. Watching this movie saps the life out of you as only a bad comedy can. It’s disheartening to watch ordinarily funny people strut and fret with weak material, and Hot Bot is the weakest of material. The movie can barely put together enough material for a feature-length narrative, and even that is inflated by the end credits outtakes that prove making the movie wasn’t any funnier than watching this unfortunate and miscalculated mess. This movie will serve as a dark reminder for everyone who worked on it as they try and pay penance for the rest of their lives to eliminate the awfulness that they helped bring into this world.

Nate’s Grade: D-