Dull as dishwater

Rating: 3/10 (12 April 2014)

The above title is how movie critic Gene Siskel, described the film. Now I've never been one to agree with the critics, but I have to side with Gene on this one. This movie was dull, and there's one thing that the original has, that this first sequel doesn't have: Heart. The plot is this: Doc returns from the future, and tells Marty that he must accompany him to the future to prevent a future catastrophe that involves his kids, Marty complies, and once they're in the future, Doc tells Marty that his future son will be arrested, and that this one event will cause a chain reaction and destroy his entire family. (Which is a falsehood, but I'll elaborate on this, when I review part III.) While in the future Hill Valley, Marty visits an antique store and buys a magazine that will tell him the results of every sporting event until the end of the century. Doc finds the magazine, scolds Marty for buying it, and throws it away. Unfortunately, an older version of Biff hears this, retrieves the magazine, steals the time machine, (and somehow knows how to use it.) travels back in time, and gives the magazine to himself in 1955. Upon doing this, the present changes, and Hill Valley becomes a despotic, hell on earth. Therefore, Marty and Doc must travel back to 1955 and put things right. I've never cared for this movie. While I can watch it as a time waster, the film desperately lacks the magic that the first film had. As with the first film, there are great performances all around, but the story is where the film fails. If their goal was to tell a story about how time travel can be misused, that's fine, but why does this film have to re-hash everything that the previous film did? For example: Marty's confrontation with Griff (Biff's son) in The Cafe 80's, and the following hover-board scene, are exact copies of the confrontation with Biff,and the skateboard scene from the previous film! When Doc and Marty are in 1955, what do we see? The exact same things from the first film! Maybe I'm in the minority here, but when I go into a sequel, I don't wanna see the same thing over again, I wanna see something new! I would say that this film was a huge step down from the previous film, but it wasn't. It was actually a whole flight of stairs down from the previous film! So after all that, you may be wondering why I gave the film three stars instead of one. Well the reason for that is, I liked the 2015 Hill Valley setting. It was the one and only time that the film was fun. Even though it was a blatant rip- off, the hover-board scene was still fun. I only wish that the whole film could have taken place in the 2015 setting. As a sequel, Back to the future II fails. On its own, it still fails. Which is what I've always seen Back to the future II as, one utterly disappointing failure.