Hits The Ground Running

Rating: 8/10 (31 August 2007)

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II hits the ground running like few films as our heroes thrust themselves into 2015. It's a visual treat as teen time traveler Marty McFly (a distinctly non-teen Michael J. Fox) defies gravity on his hoverboard, encounters futuristic marvels and, in a memorable few moments, visits a retro '80s cafe. The fun spirit of the original lives on. The film takes a darker turn, however, with Marty forced to alter history to prevent the rise of family nemesis Biff Tannen. Suddenly Marty's dodging bullets and leaping from buildings instead of jamming on the guitar (though he finds time to do that, too).
This film is quite different from the others in the popular trilogy, but it is also, a number of ways, superior to what came before and (particularly) what came after. It benefits immensely from a wildly imaginative script. Rather than rehashing the original, as so many sequels do, director Robert Zemeckis ingeniously intertwined the two films by having the characters literally revisit the events of the first entry. BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II is complex, to be sure, but not so complex so as to detract from the viewer's enjoyment. It is a thinking person's time travel adventure, one with enough to satisfy multiple viewings.
Most other areas of the film hold up well. The Oscar-nominated special effects, as touched on earlier, remain superb nearly two decades later. And because it was made before the rise of CGI, the effects and stunts have a homegrown appeal that is increasingly difficult to find today. Fox is strong in the lead, but Christopher Lloyd's eccentric Doc Brown again nearly steals the show. And Zemeckis' immense directorial talents are on full display as he knows just when to pick up the action and when to give us a chance to absorb all we've just seen.