it throws probability out the window in favor of more gadgets and plot complications...and amazingly comes off as almost as exciting as the original

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2010)

"Back to the Future: Part II" is an exhilarating sequel to a modern-day classic. Throwing out all sense of believability and probability in favor of making it zanier and more random than its marvelously-plotted predecessor, remarkably, it comes across as almost as equally entertaining. Picking up where the first film left off, Marty (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) travel forward in time in order to correct tragic future events, all the while becoming more and more aware of the dangers of time travel. Their fears turn to reality when, in the future, an elderly Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) steals the Flux Capacitor-equipped DeLorean and adjusts his own past to make an alternative reality in which he rules in a dystopian dictatorship. When discovering what happens, it is up to Marty to once again travel to 1955, avoid ruining what he fixed the first time, and correcting things for the future. It sounds complicated, but that's only because it is.
"Part II" and the third sequel in this Robert Zemeckis trilogy are liable to disappoint a fair percentage of people, especially if they are admirers of the original. The first "Back to the Future" is one of Robert Zemeckis's masterpieces, using a plethora of imaginative plot elements that are now conventions, and using first-class storytelling to make a very sweet, and (rare for a science-fiction film) touching opus. "Part II" assumes the same visual style and imagination, but instead throws the sweeter elements out the window in favor of more gadgets, more monologues from Doc, more complications in the plot, and more kinetic energy. Despite all of this, however, it comes off as very exhilarating. "Part II" is really an old-fashioned sort of time-travel movie, but is done with such zest and excitement as only a director of Zemeckis's level can give us that it puts you on the edge of your seat.
I will admit, the first half-hour of the movie, the look into the far future, didn't quite ring my bell and I was a bit apprehensive. But once the plot of Biff stealing the time machine and altering the course of events comes into place, the film really picks up the tempo and keeps on going all the way until its daredevil culmination. It does not measure up to the original film, but it is very exciting and certainly more fun than the disappointing "Back to the Future: Part III."