Back to the Past,then the Future, Again

Rating: 7/10 (14 March 2006)

For my comment on the 1st "Back to the Future," I mentioned how there aren't too many time travel movies because all the good premises have been used up in a select few sf films ("The Time Machine," etc.)... This is never more evident than here, the 3rd & final chapter of the McFly clan and Doc Brown, where-in new cast member Steenbergen essentially duplicates her role from "Time After Time" of '79. Once again she is visited by a time traveler (the Doc in this case) and gets swept away by him in grand fantasy fulfillment. Or was this all a sly nod to her earlier film role and that film? In any case, some of the stuff with changing photographs and repetitive motifs (Marty/Fox waking up as Lea Thompson hovers over him) begins to get stale and it's just as well this was the finale. Most of the film takes place way back in 1885, where our heroes need to figure out a way to get their 'time-vehicle' up to 88 mph without fuel.
Halfway through, I began to compare this effort to low-end time travel movies such as "Timerider" (also a plot involving going back to the old west), which is not a good thing. However, this benefits from the engaging characters we've come to know in the previous 2 films and a lot of silly wordplay on the 'Clint Eastwood' name, which is worth a chuckle. To me, one of the more clever scenes was a pay-off on the foreshadowing of a famous scene from an actual Eastwood movie ("A Fistful of Dollars" I believe). But almost all the interaction with the western characters was like from some average TV episode, including all the dumb conflict with yet another incarnation of Biff (Wilson), here a foul-looking gunslinger. The romance angle is sort of sweet and the climactic action on the hurtling train is well done, as expected. The final little whammy with Doc & his bride is not too surprising, but I found it interesting no explanation was offered for Doc's triumphant return (wait, that hover-board from the previous film - is that how he did it? - great scott!). The end could have been a set-up for a series titled something like 'Adventures in Time with Doc Brown' but maybe it's just as well nothing like that happened.