Lots of fun, just don't think too hard

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2016)

Why will this film be remembered? Well, I'd say the strength and chemistry of the characters alone makes it an eight. This film was perfectly cast even down to the supporting characters. Then there is that marvelous score that reflects the atmosphere and energy of the entire film and is immediately recognizable. And although the overall ground of time travel has been trodden before, this one addresses time travel and its implications on so many levels. There is the main story arc, but then there are lots of little ripples going out to the universe as a result of the present interacting with the past that you may have to watch it several times to catch all of the changes and all of the jokes.
Besides time travel, this one merges in questions about self-esteem and how it is built or destroyed, and how it changes things to EARN the girl instead of having her handed to you through a trick of fate and actually your own moral failings, along with some great action scenes and edge of your chair suspense. Also, it demonstrates what you've always suspected - that your parents were probably quite different as teenagers than they have told you. Heck, they probably even THINK they are telling you the truth!
Still there is some stuff that just bugs me - just enough to knock one star off of the film from a perfect ten. Someone smart enough to build a time machine (Christopher Lloyd as the loopy Dr. Brown) does not know that Christ was not born on 12/25/0000? People being erased from existence in order of birth as a result of messing up the past? And why would George hang around in a town working at a job where Biff, the town bully, continues to dog him for thirty years past high school? Why not leave town, or at least spike Biff's drink with some untraceable poison at the company Christmas party that produces a death that looks like a heart attack while George laughs maniacally (in private of course)? But now we are talking a different genre of film aren't we? Plus, why are Marty's brother and sister exactly how you would expect them to turn out given Dad's lack of self esteem and mom's unhappiness with her situation, but Marty has turned out to be this normal kid, an apple falling far from the tree? And I really think that Chuck Berry wrote every song he wrote without any help from a time traveler. The only answer to all of these questions but the Christmas one is that these things have to happen or else the story cannot play out as cleverly as it does. I'll let you watch and see how it plays out.
But first I have to set up the story for you. Michael J. Fox plays Marty, a normal kid who hails from a dysfunctional family of underachievers, and whose parents sole reason for being married seems to be that mom's father ran over dad with his car. Marty befriends Doc Brown, a guy who over the years has sold the entire family fortune he inherited in building his time machine. He finally accomplishes this, but to do so he needs plutonium, which he steals from some Libyans. Unfortunately the Libyans show up at the Twin Pines Mall where doc and Marty are about to give the time machine a test drive - it is in automobile form, a DeLorean to be specific. To get away from the terrorists, Marty has to use the time machine as a getaway car. In the process he crosses the speed threshold that sends the time machine into the date it was last programmed for, which happens to be the date his parents met back in 1955. Marty's only hope is to go find his friend Doc Brown, as a young man, in hopes Doc can help him, even as Doc lies dead in 1985, shot by the Libyans. Well, it gets complicated, but you'll enjoy every minute of this film that manages to be so 80's even when it is in the 50s.