Time Is Like A River....

Rating: 6/10 (12 June 2012)

It gets no points for originality because we've visited this particular structure before, but within the limits of the sequel it's inventive, thrilling, suspenseful, and sometimes funny. It's in the nature of sequels to do what has been done successfully before -- only with MORE of it. This one is faster and more packed with incident than "Back to the Future" and it ends with a brazen advertisement for the sequel yet to come, "Back to the Future Part III." Poor Marty McFly is flung about through time again and winds up being transferred from 1988 to 2015, which is three years from this writing. Then he's hauled back to 1955 again and we see repeats and variations on the earlier theme. The villain is still the cretinous Biff and the lightning that strikes the town's clock must be figured into the escape. And we still are treated to McFly playing "Johnny Be Good" to an astonished audience.
It's always interesting to look back at pictures of the future and see what kinds of boats were missed in the predictions. ("The Shape Of Things To Come" is amusing to watch today.) The writers haven't done too much with 2015. The good folks of the town wear some plastic clothes and headgear that looks like space helmets, and there are a few jokes about a Ronald Reagan clone welcoming visitors to "The 80s Cafe." The town itself is not transfigured but sports what looks like a pretty and tranquil koi pool in front of the Court House. The MacGuffin is an almanac covering the years 1950 to 2000. If you owned such a document in 1985, McFly's temporal home base, you could do a lot with it.
Michael J. Fox is charming in his winsome way and Christopher Lloyd is as loony and manic as ever. Biff is, if anything, more evil than before. He's murderous, demonic. He is defeated, at least for the moment. It remains to be seen if he is or was to turn up as Ike Clanton.