Authentically entertaining

Rating: 7/10 (20 July 2015)

You should not watch Back to the Future looking for serious, intriguing thought experiments regarding time travel. You should watch it for what it is: a Hollywood blockbuster that seeks to make money through people's entertainment. And the profit-seeking motive is quite clear from the beginning: you see brand placement EVERYWHERE.
Back to the Future, then, has all the ingredients for a Hollywood blockbuster: funny characters, unlikely plot denouements that you see coming way before it happens, very cliché characters such as the town bully, the timid nerd that becomes a hero, the damsel in distress. Also, as a 1985 blockbuster, it includes racism and sexism that would probably not be tolerated nowadays, such as the main actor shouting "the Libyans!" as a synonym of "the bad guys!", or the main character literally planning to abuse of a girl, which happens to be his mother.
That being said, the movie does achieve it main goal: it is truly entertaining. I'm not the kind of person who laughs out loud when watching comedies, but in this case I couldn't avoid it. There are truly remarkable situations, especially with Marty's mother. The doctor's character is also particularly well-made, and the actor's performance is notable. In general, the creators did a good job in showing all the different funny situations that would arise from bringing an 80s kid to 1955, such as him playing rock'n roll in front of an awed audience, or Marty saying that a TV program that is just being aired is a classic that he watched in a rerun.
So once you understand you shouldn't have high hopes for this movie, and that you should only look for having a good time, this movie will be very satisfactory. There are more artistic movies, better written plots, better directed ones, even funnier ones. But very often, these movies don't remain in the collective imaginary in the way this did it. The way this movie is part of today's pop culture should not be understated.