Clever, and inventive time travel comedy (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2004)

Directed by acclaimed Oscar winner Robert Zemeckis, and with a script by him and Bob Gale, "Back to the Future" is one of the better, if not the best, time-travel tale committed to film. The key to this film's success is that it functions not so much as science fiction, but as simple human drama with an eccentric twist.
It's Hill Valley 1985, and Marty McFly (Michael J.Fox) is a carefree but insecure teenager with a beautiful girlfriend, a family of bullied losers, and a sole friend in mad scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). The good Doc has just invented a time-travelling car, and it is in this vehicle that Marty ends up in 1955, at the doorstep of his parents when they were just teenaged kids. Marty must secure the Doc's help to get back to the future, in the meantime ensuring his birth by uniting his nerdish father (Crispin Glover) with his outrageously flirty mother (Lea Thompson)...
The science in the story is conveniently glossed over, and the idea of time travel is really no more than a gimmick to explore a childhood curiosity of what our parents were like as children. The script uses this to point out some humorous aspects of parental and romantic relationships. This is especially true in the well-handled Oedipal twist where Marty's mother falls in love with him. The parent roles are reversed when Marty chastises his mum for typically teenage behaviour whereupon he's told: 'Marty, you're beginning to sound just like my mother'. There are plenty of other small, knowing jokes and plot twists in the story (there's a good onrunning gag about the town mayor).
The setting of the fictitious Hill Valley is well recreated for both time periods, although the effect (particularly with the 1950's section) is one more of rose-tinted nostalgia than balanced realism. The action is well-paced by Robert Zemeckis, allowing the plot and the comedy to develop at ease.
The cast boasts a gallery of well-played, memorable characters. Fox is a hit as the teenage everyman Marty, and Lloyd is on fine eccentric form as the scientist Doc. Crispin Glover is excellent as Marty's dad, brilliantly conveying the transformation from bumbling idiot to confident, assertive adult. Lea Thompson gets it just right in all respects as Marty's mother, playing it subtley but emotively. They are well-supported by Thomas F.Wilson as the bullying Biff Tannen, and James Tolkan as the school disciplinarian Mr Strickland.
The film builds to an exciting, suspenseful finale and ends with an opening for not one but two sequels to this superb original.