rare 80s joy

Rating: 8/10 (17 October 2005)

SPOILERS When you build a time machine, it just has to be a Deloren really. The corrupt car manufacturer's ultimate advert for his death trap vehicle, "Back to the Future" was your regular 1980s classic. Well written, entertaining to watch and with a killer soundtrack, it's a film which has managed to survive the test of time. Released midway through one of the most irrelevant decades in history, this Michael J Fox driven piece is great.
When Dr Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) creates a time machine, he's made his greatest, and most risky invention. Shot for stealing the plutonium power source, Brown's invention undertakes it's first major expedition with young Marty McFly (Fox) behind the wheel. Travelling back thirty years to the 1950s, Marty finds himself in his home town of Hill Valley and in the company of his lovestruck mother (Lea Thompson) and useless father (Crispin Glover). Destroying their entire relationship, Marty manages to completely screw up his entire future. Still, with no way to get home, and a school bully on the prowl, he's got all the time in the world to fix it.
Perhaps the one set of films that Robert Zemeckis will ever be remembered for, "Back to the Future" and it's two sequels will forever be remembered as an entertaining piece of cinema. From the opening of the film where Fox glides around the fictional town of Hill Valley to the sound of Huey Lewis' "Power of Love", you can tell what decade it is, and yet you continue to watch.
It might be harsh to really slate the 1980s as much as we do, after all, we did get entertaining films like "Ghostbusters", "Ferris Bueller's Day Out" and "The Breakfast Club", but for every one good film, there were so many dire productions. A bit like the current box office climate, you knew that the majority were a disappointing mess, but there would always turn up one rare beauty. "Back to the Future" is one of those.
Led by some straight forward but solid performances, the film just has something about it. The witty notion of the hypocritical mother and her secret youth, that one magnificent scene where Michael J Fox performs "Johnny B Goode" at the school prom and Marvin Berry (Harry Waters Jnr) phones his cousin Chuck, all add together to leave you with a huge grin on your face. It's an icon for an age, and for once it makes you grateful for the decade.
Robert Zemeckis has never really found the highs of the "Back to the Future" trilogy (1994's "Forrest Gump" is his only other major success) since the final part was released in 1990. Ultimately though, there are worse positions to be in. A rare joy in an otherwise dire decade, this film and the continuing parts, was an entertaining piece of cinema which left you happy and content. It's perfect afternoon viewing, and the one surprise is that it isn't shown more often.