One of my all-time favorites

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2000)

"Back to the Future" was one of my all-time favorite movies when I was a teenager. It's a funny, exciting sci-fi/fantasy/comedy that today is still perfect for all ages. Michael J. Fox stars in his best film role as a teenager in 1985 who goes back in time 30 years earlier to 1955 in a DeLorean time machine and in the process meets his parents (Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover) while they're teenagers. He also catches up with his mad scientist friend (Christopher Lloyd) who built the time machine and tries to help Fox find a way to get him back to the present day. Director Robert Zemeckis made "Back to the Future" a winning film all the way around. Fox is terrific here. So are Lloyd, Thompson, and Glover. The writing (by Zemeckis and Bob Gale) is fresh and original, the directing outstanding, and the technical elements (ranging from the terrific production design to the rousing music score to the superb special effects) are dazzling. "Back to the Future" was a great '80s movie, and one of the decades biggest smash hits. Also a big asset, an awesome soundtrack featuring two great songs sung by Huey Lewis just for this movie ("Back in Time" and the Oscar-nominated "Power of Love"). The two sequels that followed simultaneously in 1989 and 1990 failed to live up to this one. In this trilogy, the original "Back to the Future" is the only one worth seeing.
**** (out of four)