Back to the First Movie

Rating: 9/10 (5 October 2012)

The journey continues, picking up right where we left off at the end of Back to the Future. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads. So off to 2015 we go. The future. And then we go hurtling back to the past, 1955 again. With a pit stop in a dystopian 1985 in between. It's quite the adventure, albeit a tad confusing if you're not really paying attention. The first movie was very straightforward, Marty McFly stuck in the past having to ensure his parents ended up together. Simple. This one is not so simple, it's a bit of a maze. But a maze well worth working your way through. Back and forth through time Marty and Doc Brown go and we're along for the very enjoyable ride.
In 2015 Marty and Doc do what they set out to do, preventing Marty's future son from getting himself in major future trouble. And the vision of what 2015 would look like which director Robert Zemeckis presents is a hoot. Flying cars are only the start. But Marty and Doc aren't there for some time-travel sightseeing, they accomplish their mission and get the heck out of there and head back to 1985 before they can screw anything up. Little do they know they screwed everything up. When they get back to 1985 it is not the Hill Valley they know and love. Hill Valley is now Hell on Earth, a miserable place lorded over by the evil Biff Tannen. What happened? Well, as Marty and Doc soon discover while they were in 2015 old Biff stole the time machine and went back to 1955 where he gave his young self a sports almanac with the results of all major sporting events for the rest of the century. Biff bets on all the winners, becomes obscenely wealthy and takes over the town. When Marty and Doc get back to 1985 they find that fate and Biff have now dealt them a very unkind hand. But if Marty thinks he's got it bad he need only look at what's happened to his poor parents who've got it much, much worse. Only one thing to do. Hop in the DeLorean and head back to 1955 to prevent Biff from getting his hands on that book. They must set right what has gone horribly wrong.
It all sounds a bit convoluted and in truth there are times where the movie is a little too complex for its own good. The first movie was just flat-out fun all the way through. Here the movie has to slow down to explain itself. And things are much bleaker this time around too, the alternate 1985 being such an awful place. The sooner the movie gets out of there the better off it is. Especially considering where it is the movie's going. Back into 1955, back into the very day which served as the climax of the first film. Yep, we're going back to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. It's the rare opportunity for a movie to go back into itself, see itself from new perspectives and Zemeckis takes full advantage of the opportunity. Those scenes we know so well from the first film are given new twists and it is here that this sequel really shines. Watching Marty try to solve his new problem without undoing what he did in the first film is simply terrific stuff. Part II may not have been as consistently captivating, nor as out and out fun, as the original but the story ultimately pays itself off brilliantly.
Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd are pitch-perfect again as Marty and Doc. Thomas F. Wilson does a great job playing multiple incarnations of the villainous Biff. Poor Lea Thompson spends most of her screen time playing older versions of Marty's mom Lorraine, to whom time has been unkind. Thompson does what she has to do well but the film does miss that youthful charm, spunk and vivaciousness of the first film's Lorraine. And the film also clearly misses Crispin Glover in the role of George McFly. Glover is such a unique performer, he brought so much bizarre yet endearing personality to the role of George. This film's attempt to work around Glover's absence is awkward to say the least. But best not to quibble about what this movie misses. Better to embrace what it has. It's a great story which takes us on a wild journey through the space-time continuum. Yes that story requires a little effort on the part of the audience to keep up through all its twists and turns. This movie doesn't make itself as easy to enjoy as the first one did, you have to work a little for this one. It's worth working for. Marty and Doc are such great characters, such a great team. You can't wait to see where they go next. Part III couldn't come soon enough.