Zemeckis Flies

Rating: Null/10 (25 March 2010)

This year, John Hughes died, and we were reminded of the depth of his insight into subadult suspension. Being reminded of his work impressed me. What will we think when Zemeckis dies?
Certainly we will be reminded of how he balanced fantasy and reality in all of his projects. Possibly it will be noted that he softened the Spielberg approach by unintuitively adding incoherence.
I think I will remember two films: this one and "Roger Rabbit." These both are deceptively trivial. Was this the first mainstream movie that played as cleverly with time travel conundrums?
It was not intended to spawn a sequel, and you can see that certain conventions were established that hurt the successors. But seen by itself, the idea of superimposing actors, characters and times in the same package works well. Makes this a gem.
Notable is once again the scientist. You have only two types: pipe smoking, chin stroking blackboard thinker who explains, or what we have here. Lloyd is wildhaired, wild-eyed. A hardware guy, not an idea guy. An active risktaker, frantic in demeanor, but with apparently no sense of scope. For instance, he spends more time on a model of how to explain catching lightning than on the apparatus itself.
The film revolves around his instabilities and mirrors those as instabilities in the world. It all starts when he bumps his head getting off the toilet, folded into his minute of death from jilted terrorists. Everything that follows is his wacky vision, joined by Marty when knocked out by the nuclear guitar amp.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.