The Best Instalment in the BTTF Trilogy

Rating: 10/10 (2 July 2007)

The Back To The Future trilogy is undoubtedly one of the most successful movie franchise's in history, and there's no mistaking why. The sequel to the first movie was often criticised for being too complicated to understand- and yet it is due to the various sub-plots taking place within the movie, which makes this instalment the most interesting and eventful in the series. As others have rightly pointed out on here, Back To The Future: Part 2, will probably make no sense to you unless you have seen and understood the first film. The plot, is in itself, complicated: Marty McFly with Doc Brown travel forward in time to 2015 and to prevent further crises taking place with the future McFly family. As they do so, Biff, Marty's arch- enemy has got hold of a book that contains a list of sports statistics and results. With this, he uses it to make a fortune for himself, and hence he becomes a very rich man. Marty and the Doc have to retrieve the book, as well as to make sure they do not come into contact with alternate versions of themselves. Also, other events unfold as the film progresses: in 1985, George- Marty's father is deceased and thus, Marty discovers his mother, Lorraine is- wait for it- married to Biff! Marty and Doc Brown then travel back in time to 1955- where most of the first movie was based- to set the record straight.
The film has so many great twists and in contrast to the first film, the narrative doesn't follow in the same way as your typical time-travelling flick. It also has some great action sequences thrown in, for instance, when Marty has to escape from Biff and his clowns using a kids hover-board.
I was surprised to learn that Crispin Glover, who co-starred in the original BTTF film, was a notable absentee in this one. But I guess his absence did pay dividends for this sequel because it did make the story all the more compelling and intriguing to watch. The main leads in Fox, Lloyd, as well as the supporting cast in Thompson, Shue and Wilson all held the film in place really well and delivered their lines and performances with such style and professionalism. Lea Thompson's role as Lorraine Mcfly was wonderful-yet intriguing, given the fact that in real life she was born in the same year as Michael J Fox himself,- and so, I would, for the record, go on to say that she could've played the role of Marty's girlfriend in place of Elizabeth Shue.
Personally, I preferred the second film over the others in the BTTF series, because I felt it was more challenging and that it kept viewers on the edge of their seats, which is all the more so as it didn't follow the conventional narrative formula as other sci-fi time travelling based films. Even though the story was complicated to get to grips with, BTTF 2 was unique and original in its own way, particularly as it had more to offer in terms of twists and turns. The first film was good, whilst with the third, I thought that the Wild West setting was somewhat of a mistake as it just didn't work as well as it should. But I could understand the fact that the writers, as well as Zemeckis, wanted to try something completely different.
As in regards to Back The The Future 2, it is an enjoyable and exciting ride and one of the rarest and best examples of a film sequel ever produced. With great special FX, excellent dialogue, great performances, good humour and an interesting narrative and plot, all these make for a terrific classic, which this film is. Full marks!