One of the best sequels ever

Rating: 9/10 (13 August 2008)

The first Back to the Future is in my opinion one of the very best in its genre. Of course it was such a huge success that there had to be a sequel or two. Predictably, Back to the Future Part II was not anywhere near as good as the original. Back to the Future Part III on the other hand manages to match and even maybe surpass the quality of the first one.
In this movie Marty travels back to 1955 and meets Doc (just seconds after Doc sent him back to the future in the first movie) to tell him that he (Doc) is stuck in 1885 because of a time travel he took in 1985(!) Marty then has to go back to 1885 too to warn Doc that he is about to be shot in a few days and therefore has to come back to 1985 with him (Marty). The idea of a time travel to the Wild West is pretty amusing, and here the opportunity for fun anachronistic situations is well taken care of. For example, when Marty has to come up with a name for himself, of course the first one that springs to mind is Clint Eastwood. "What a sissy name is that?" one of the bad guys remarks. And the scene where Marty has to dance to avoid being shot in his feet and starts to moonwalk is just hilarious.
I think in addition to the humor, what makes this movie so watchable is that great care is taken to make the Western environment convincing. Also the story is pretty exciting and not totally predictable as is often the case in this type of movies. The acting is first class and the actors really seem to enjoy themselves.
My only complaint is that the ending is kind of a letdown, but other than that I could hardly imagine how the movie could have been improved. I have seen it at least three times, and saw it again for the first time in many years with my 10 year old daughter a few days ago. She enjoyed it a lot, but not as much as the first in the series. This was mainly due to the fact that she had problems with making sense of the story which is a bit convoluted for a child.