The "difficult" second film

Rating: 7/10 (19 January 2006)

Sixteen years on and I can remember it like yesterday...which is handy because the real yesterday was 'king dreadful. I was swaggering down Causeway Head, Penzance's premier street as its the only one that contains a cinema AND a chip shop - in my hand a thick wedge of pornographic magazines. My Destination? 'The Matrix', an incomplete garage where myself and two friends stored a hoard bought using homeless men given extra for cigarettes. As I walked past the Savoy I saw a coming soon poster for the Back to the Future sequel. I had no idea it was even being made. It was a fantastic moment. The original was one of my all time favourite things and the only one I could enjoy with my Mother in the room. When I finally saw it 3 or 4 months later I was entertained but held reservations which hold up to this day and that, lucky people that you are, I'll share with you now. Immediately it was apparent that there were some problems. One, Claudia Wells had become Elizabeth Shue and no-one had noticed - worrying because it was the original actresses good looks that had effectively saved Marty's bacon when his assertion that "she's beautiful" had caused him to whip out the clock-tower flyer with its precious future information. Two, Chrispin Glover had chosen not to participate. Why was this allowed to happen? He was a key supporting character in the first film and though they could clearly get round it with a lot of soft long distance shots and layers of makeup his absence left a hole in the ensuing two episodes. I'd love to see the original paradox script which presumably had him in it. Three, it was too complicated and so packed with plot that you never really had the opportunity to sit back and breathe it in like the first film. You know it's been retrospectively plotted when you have to insert a scene into the original epilogue to make it work. Four, continuity. Michael J Fox's appearance in the 1985 film is a matter of record as its, er, on film, so you'd think it wouldn't be a stretch for just one person to observe that the diminutive man child had different hair. For those of you that think this is pedantry, YES IT IS and wacha going'do about it? Some nights all I can think about is a digitally tinkering but thats a different subject entirely and not something we should go into here. So part II is good fun, cleverly conceived and all the rest of it but it just doesn't have the heart of the first and of course it doesn't really work as a self-contained instalment because its essentially half a film - a 108 minute setup for the better, more satisfying part III. 'Tis a comedy lets not forget so its worth mentioning some good jokes - Nixton's fifth term in the alternate future, the black and decker hydrated pizza, Doc Brown's "Women!" monologue and of course "Ooh la la!" OK, the product placement is disgraceful but you can use the 'minority report' defence (which presumably the producers saw coming) and argue that it adds a real-worldly dimension to the future. That said, Pepsi did very well out of the futures and that would be fine 'cept it tastes terrible. Its nice that you have a sequel that does something different from its predecessor and credits the audience with a bit of intelligence, plus it was blatantly robbed of the best-visual Oscar (went to the Abyss would you believe). Excellent though flawed entertainment.