The madness continues...

Rating: Null/10 (20 April 2004)

On the surface, the "Back to the Future" trilogy is a light hearted comedy that occasionally shows the potential danger of time travel. Look deeper though and you'll find that it's also a metaphor about what it means to be a man. In the first film, being a man was defined as having the guts to stand up for yourself. In the sequels, this notion is turned on its ear, suggesting that being a man also means you have to know when to reign yourself in. But more on that later.
Picking up where the first film left off, Doc whisks Marty and his girlfriend/future wife Jennifer (exit Claudia Wells, enter Elisabeth Shue, who, like Michael J. Fox, clearly looks too old to be playing a teenager) to the year 2015 so they can sort out some family problems. Well, primarily Marty has to sort out the problems, Doc puts Jennifer out because she's not important to the plan (in actuality, the writers were too lazy to make her part bigger so they just put her under). The immediate problem Doc needs Marty to contend with is that his future son Marty Jr. is going to be arrested for taking part in a robbery that is being concocted by Griff Tannen, grandson of Biff Tannen (both played by Thomas F. Wilson; Griff's parents are never shown). Since Jr. is the spitting image of Marty, Marty is able to take his place but before he does so, he witnesses what a wimp his son is and, while posing as his son, the extremely old man version of Biff mistakes Marty for Jr. ("Say hi to your grandma for me kid.") and taunts him about a mistake he has yet to make. Marty's temper gets him into trouble with Griff and leads to a chase on hover-boards that's essentially a slicked up version of the skateboard chase from #1. Marty gets Griff in trouble and as a result his son is saved from being arrested, but then Jennifer is picked up by some cops and, thinking she's had one hell of a face lift, they take her to her future home, where she wakes up and spies on her future family. She overhears future in laws Lorraine (Leah Thompson) and George (exit Crispin Glover, enter Jeff Weissman) talking about a car accident that Marty got into where he permanently injured his guitar hand and was unable to pursue his music ambitions, which led to a wasted life in a power plant and unhappy life with his family. Middle aged Marty is in even worse shape than his father originally was, and then, having not learned his lesson from the car accident, he gets himself fired for letting a co-worker, the same guy who got him in that accident, goad him into illegal activity! Jennifer then faints when she confronts her middle aged self and is taken back to 1985 by Doc and Marty.
Except 1985 has changed once again! Biff Tannen, now a successful millionaire, has taken over the town, murdered George and married Lorraine while the alternate Marty is in a boarding school somewhere and the alternate Doc is in a mental institution! Fortunately, the "real" Doc is on hand with the "real" Marty and they remember that Marty left a sports almanac in the time machine because he wanted to place a few bets, but Biff caught wind of this, stole the time machine and gave the almanac to his younger self in 1955 so that he could make himself rich: that is why Hill Valley is now a living hell and Marty's mom Lorraine is trapped in an abusive/loveless marriage where she is forced to look like a middle aged whore. After realizing that this is basically all his fault, Marty and Doc go back in time and follow the two Biffs around to get the almanac back from him, but Marty's temper nearly thwarts them when Biff calls him "chicken". Well, they manage to get the almanac and burn it, thus restoring the original alternate time line from the first film, but the time machine is struck by lightning and sends Doc back to 1885!
The whole reversed manhood message comes to full circle in part 3.

Ironically, the plot here came to be due to the studio's inability to work out a deal with Crispin Glover for the George McFly part. Elisabeth Shue is wasted as Jennifer, but she has a few funny if typical "girl humor" moments (like her excitement at being able to see her future wedding and her shock at seeing her older self). Why Fox plays his own daughter is unknown (maybe he felt he felt he owed to his co-stars). Still, the film is pretty funny in a slightly darker way (though the future of 2015 is refreshingly brighter than most futures). My favorite line is "I feel like we're in hell or something./No, it's most definitely Hill Valley, but I can't imagine how HELL could be much worse!"