Back to the Future

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2005)

If you like science-fiction films, then you'll love this from director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) and executive producer Steven Spielberg. Basically Marty McFly (Golden Globe nominated Michael J. Fox) is the young aspiring teenage musician and friend of Dr. 'Doc' Emmet Brown (a fantastic Christopher Lloyd), and finds out that Doc has invented a time machine with a DeLorean car. It is run by tremendous power from plutonium, which he took from the Libyans, who find him and shoot him. When Marty escapes from them in the car and excels to 88mph (the speed needed to time travel) he is transported unintentionally to 1955 (which Doc set). Unfortunately, while looking for Doc to help him get home, he interferes with the history of his parents in this past, where they meet and fall in love, making his mother love him! Marty now not only has to get his parents, George (Crispin Glover, who did not return for the sequels) and Lorraine (Les Thompson) to fall in love again to restore history/the future, before he and his brother and sister are erased from existence, but the only power available instead of plutonium to get him back to the future (1985) is a bolt of lighting that will hit the clock tower (they know this from a paper he brought from 1985). A fantastic look at how time is so precious, and what can change from the tiniest history interference, aka time paradox. By the way, the plutonium was changed to trash in the end to help explain the sequels. Also starring Thomas F. Wilson as Biff Tannen, Claudia Wells as Jennifer Parker (who was changed in the sequels to Elisabeth Shue) and Titanic's Billy Zane as Match. The story is original and though provoking, the characters are lovable, and the special effects are great, just a great film. It won the Oscar for Best Sound Effects Editing, and it was nominated for Best Song for "The Power of Love", Best Sound and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, it was nominated the BAFTAs for Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Screenplay, Best Special Visual Effects and Best Film, and it was nominated the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical, Best Original Song and Best Screenplay. It was number 7 on The 100 Greatest Family Films. Outstanding!