Middling sequel, although I liked it the first time I saw it

Rating: 6/10 (14 December 2011)

I recall liking this pretty well when I saw it a quarter of a century ago, but this time, watching it on the heels of watching the original Back to the Future, I was pretty disappointed.
The sequel has several notable differences from the original. For one thing, it's much more sci-fi-ish. The first movie took a sci-fi principle and built around it a movie whose charm was based on human interaction. The sequel is a bit more interested in it's sci-fi elements, and a little less interested in people.
But the real problem is that this movie is much less well constructed than the original. In BTTF, everything is neatly set up. Everything that happens flows logically from a previous event. But BTTF2 is much more of a mishmosh, with a rambling story and loose threads. Even the way the movie begins is antithetical to the first one. The first time around, Doc is keenly aware of the dangers of fooling with history; in this movie, he chooses to change things around.
It's also also just not nearly as funny as the first one.
BTTF2 picks up towards the end. The last half hour or so has Marty returning to the scenes of the original movie, and it's cute to see the way he has to change events without letting the first time traveling Marty see him.
It is in fact references to the first movie that are the best part of the second. Which just proves how good the first one was, and how idea- poor the sequel is.