A Live-Action Saturday Morning Cartoon

Rating: 5/10 (30 December 2019)

It's fine. It's mass appeal done right, if not exemplary. And that's the slant - it feels like it was formulaicly designed to have as much mass-audience appeal as possible. Much like Indiana Jones or the MCU, this tries to take you back to those Saturday Morning Cartoons - hip young teen and his mad scientist friend and their time-travelling rock'n'roll misadventures. Oh, watch out, they have to jump-start Doc's time-machine Delorean (in earlier drafts it was a refrigerator) just in the knick of time as lightning strikes the clock tower in the town square. This movie basically demands that you watch it in your pajamas while eating cereal. The production, direction, and pace are all fine. Michael J. Fox is hilariously bad and Christopher Lloyd is clearly having fun in his over-the-top madcap role. It's a serviceable diversion, but the problem with pop-culture is that it's elevated this movie way too far above its lot.