Enjoyable, but cartoonish (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2004)

Darker, faster and with a greater emphasis on thrills and special effects, the second part of the "Back to the Future" series is a complete change of pace from the original. There is still plenty to enjoy here but much of the characterisation and wit of the first film has been lost.
Picking up exactly where "Back to the Future" left off, Marty (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) travel with Doc (Christopher Lloyd) to Hill Valley in the year 2015 to stop Marty's children from ending up in prison. While there Marty picks up a sports almanac which, if taken back to the past, could make him rich through placing bets. But things turn complicated when the book is stolen by Marty's arch-nemesis Biff Tannen (Thomas F.Wilson), who runs off with it in the time machine. Returning to much-altered 1985, where a super-rich Biff has married Marty's mother (Lea Thompson) and rules Hill Valley, Marty and Doc must go back to 1955 to destroy the almanac and save the future...
The whole film is slickly made, well-paced and contains some well-directed fights and chases. However, right from the start the story has many problems. Trying to work out the many time paradoxes in the story is headache-inducing, and the story replaces the careful characterisation of the original with a lot of cartoonish ideas.
The 2015 version of Hill Valley is the 80s on steroids, and much of the aging makeup for the characters is too garish and over-the-top to be convincing. In one scene, Michael J.Fox simultaneously plays the older Marty, Marty's son and (most ludicrously) Marty's daughter. On a brighter note, this film's kicks off a character arc for Marty that will be resolved in the third film.
But most intriguing is the chilling elevation of Biff from simple small-town bully to psychotic, power-hungry arch-villain. The scenes where he rules Hill Valley from atop his luxury hotel are over-the-top but this doesn't matter too much, courtesy of some good acting by Thomas F.Wilson. From thereon in, the pace doesn't flag. The final scenes in 1955, where Marty races against Biff to destroy the book, are spectacularly well-directed and lensed in flawlessly with the events of the original.

The acting is variable from so-so to over-the-top, but Christopher Lloyd and Michael J.Fox hold the thing together and stop the plot from becoming completely incomprehensible.
After the breakneck speed of this second instalment, the series slows down for it's conclusion in the lighthearted, romantic "Back to the Future Part III". As it is, this is the weakest and least convincing of the trilogy, but it is still an entertaining film provided you don't think about it too much.