Genuinely exhilarating science fiction film, whose leaps in tone are handled well; whose characterisation is pleasing and whose sense of adventure is infectious.

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2011)

I don't think that the first Back to the Future sequel is ultimately much more than an energising romp through the past; the then-present and the then distant future – an episode in the lives of certain characters during which they must spontaneously react to a predicament and shoot off to try and deal with it in whatever way they can, systematically hopping to and from various eras in the process to formulate an adventure. Indeed, the film's disconnection from the franchise's other two entries lies with the fact the time machine is as much a feature in Part II as anything else compared to the first and third films; the characters therein darting off to varying times on varying equilibriums as opposed to bedding down at a set date and allowing an adventure to play out. Furthermore, it is the only film in the series without a slam-bang finale consisting of racing against time (so to speak) with the potential peril of missing getting back to a specific year at stake – ending here on a cliff hanger merely teeing up the next entry, thus alluding to proceedings as 'filler' or as an entry detailing an episode or two instead of a rounded adventure. Regardless, the piece works rather well.
The film kicks off following the conclusion of the first, the lead in Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, and his newfound idyllic existence post-adventure with a functioning family; enthusiastic girlfriend Jennifer (Shue) and new vehicle shattered by the arrival of his long-standing partner in time Emmett Brown (Lloyd), nicknamed Doc. Doc arrives via the time machine in a frenzied and panicked manner; he has journeyed, as he said he would at the death of the first, far into the future and arrived back to inform Marty and his spouse-to-be that their future children are in big trouble. His outlining of the severity of the situation runs hand in hand with his erratic demeanour and frenzied actions, clearly in a state at the situation thus heightening tension. He speaks whilst systematically refuelling the time machine with household waste, inferring great time has to have been spent completely remodelling the contraption and its power source, a complicated procedure reiterating what a fantastic brain the man is in this respect.
After being whisked away and thrust up into air, The Delorean now with the capability of flying, the opening credits greet us with a continual shot that resembles the perspective of an aeroplane's nosecone as it flies through the sky – a continual composition echoing that of the perspective those within the Delorean might see had the trips for those therein not been instantaneous. Arriving in 2015, Doc outlines Marty's mission in that frenzied manner; the arrival into an eerie new world and the highlighting of what's at stake doing well to further tension as it's established whom he's going up against is the 2015 equivalent to being "a couple of beers short of a six-pack", only here involving that of circuit boards. It's said the police and judicial systems work with brutal efficiency, but very little in the way of law is around to break up what is aggravated assault in a diner between Griff (Wilson), Biff's grandson, and Marty, which spills out into the streets and sees him pose as his son to try and quell a future jail term.
The film begins in earnest when McFly buys a sports results booklet detailing who will win certain sporting events in the next several decades, for that when he journeys back to his present, he may earn a little extra cash. The idea is hit upon by Doc, demonised and then dismissed before Biff, now as an old man, emerges from the fire exit to a nearby establishment as if some kind of ghostly figure having overheard before taking it upon himself to deliver the book to himself as a youngster man through the Delorean's capabilities. He does so, 1985 Hill Valley eventually re-branded a Las Vegas-inspired, Civil war-torn iconography clad Hell in which Biff rules on high. Here, Biff is Marty's step-father and the consistent pulsating grinds out-poured by background power stations act as ambiguously diegetic sound effects whirring away, neatly capturing the horror of the situation Marty finds himself in; a situation poor Marty needs to have explained to him because "they" hit him on the head "harder than usual", this time.
Thus begins all manner of rather enthralling hijinks, the film undercut with a real sense of both danger and horror as these people toy with time and end up in less than glamorous scenarios; the allure of time travel rife amidst these people and encapsulated in Marty's reaction to peering long-fully down an alleyway towards a busy street in 2015 Hill Valley, wanting to get amongst the residents of the world thirty years on but eventually brought down to Earth with what it is he experiences there-on. On one occasion, Jennifer ends up in her own home thirty years on; the presence of her future daughter mingling around in the background, and in the elevated position of upstairs, complied as if an unearthly creature milling around in a the background of a horror film sequence. Robert Zemeckis directs proceedings with a certain guile, taking the film to some pretty harrowing places on top of some goofy ones that encompasses horse feces and slapstick comedy; yet able to manoeuvre around when a change in tone is required and things become blacker, if more dangerous. Marty and Doc's adventures through the ages ultimately feels a little superficial, if well put together for what it is; but the flip side to this is that if said characters are those of whom we adorn as much as we do and whose company is so pleasing, then what's the problem with spending another 'x' number of hours-and-a-bit minutes in the presence of them and their madcap, rip-roaring misadventures through time and space? My answer: absolutely nothing whatsoever.