A dissenting voice

Rating: 1/10 (28 July 2004)

OK...it looks like I'm the only person in civilization that hates this movie. I was at a friend's house, and it was rented for part of the evening's entertainment. I saw it way back in 1985 when it came out, and I did not then have any particularly hostile feelings toward it, but after seeing it again recently and looking through the comments on IMDb, I must conclude that it is the most overrated film ever made.
A quick browse through the comments yields such superlatives as, "Fantastically scripted sci-fi comedy!!", "The perfect movie package", "One of the most original idea ever to put on film"(sic), and "One of the best movies ever made in the history of film making." Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, I guess.
Plot-wise, this movie is as sit-com formulaic as they come. I can see how the pitch went to get this film made. "We'll make an episode of Three's Company meets Happy Days with some time travel in it!" I must also point out that this film is not science fiction. It is fantasy.
Maybe this is my own personal problem, but science fiction should make some attempt at plausibility. This movie relies on a device called the 'flux capacitor' that requires gigawatt's of power and a DeLorean moving at 88 miles an hour to function, although why this is the case and what the device does is never even vaguely delineated. The film would have been just as plausible if it involved a wizard that zapped people back in time with a medieval talisman and an incantation that required precise rhythm and pronunciation. It might even have been more plausible that way.
I suppose it's the 'science fiction' of it that really honks me off. It seems that so many people regard this film as good sf, and it is not. If you want a good example of sf, look at Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Many people find that film confusing and impenetrable, but good sf usually takes some work to appreciate because it deals with concepts that most people haven't thought about. This film just takes a formulaic stroll through a combination of well-worn clichés to be found all over situation comedies and time travel stories. Come to think of it, Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys deals with the time travel concept far better than this film does.
OK, this isn't to say the film has no redeeming qualities. It does have some amusing moments. As a sit-com, it's OK. For comedy in science fiction, though, the Fox network show Futurama is vastly better.