There should be more comedies like this one

Rating: 10/10 (19 July 2007)

What makes a good comedy movie? Just lots of dumb, pointless humor and no real plot. But what makes a good movie? A film with every feature containing quality, even the humor. So to have a really good comedy movie, at least in my opinion, it has to have EFFECTIVE humor WITH a point behind it, mixed with a good plot, good acting, storyline, and have a realistic feeling behind it. In other words, the humor must be something believable and of the possible. And it must all blend seamlessly with the rest of the quality parts of the film. And we get all of that in Robert Zemeckis's classic science fiction/comedy film "Back to the Future". This is the kind of comedy film that I wish we would see more often. It's like "Forrest Gump", it takes a realistic approach to life and then just blends it with the humor so that the audience doesn't concentrate so much on just laughing, but also understanding the plot and characters just as they would with a serious film. And as soon as they're done laughing at the lifelike jokes, then they focus back on the rest of the film.
One thing I notice about a lot of comedy films that teenagers in particular seem to cherish and love is that the humor is crude and oftentimes, disturbing. And I suppose that if "Back to the Future" was made for teenagers alone, then the humor would be exactly the same. In this film, there is a subplot which some might think would end up being just disturbing and agitating to the audience. But when you look at it, it's not at all uncomfortable to the viewers, but instead works out effectively by not concentrating so much on just getting an uproar out of people. Of course, there is lots of jokes in the movie, mostly because of comedian Christopher Lloyd, who is at his top notch in "Back to the Future" as well as "Back to the Future 2". Not as much in the third part of the series. But he is especially keen in the first entry of the famous trilogy. And once again, his character of Dr. Emmett Brown is goofy and funny, but also has the traits where if you bumped into a person like this on the street, you wouldn't just sit back and laugh like he was just a dumb comedy feature. The character seems like he could be a real person.
"Back to the Future" is a very great film. Not just as a comedy, but also as a science-fiction film. The explanations of the time machine aren't just thrown together as they are with many films. The time machine isn't just 'created' by the scientist and not explained how it works our what it takes. There is a fairly logical explanation, and maybe a theory, as to how time travel could be possible but it doesn't so so into depth to the point where only professors would understand what's going on. That's the thing about this film. Nothing just happens. There's an explanation and a point for everything. And that's what I like to see in all films. Whether they're serious of just plain funny. Or both.