The worst of the trilogy, but still fairly entertaining.

Rating: 7/10 (26 October 2010)

After the crazy fast paced special effects extravaganza second film, that takes us to not just 1985 and '55, but also 2015 and 1985A, you'd expect a just as exciting conclusion. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong, as the third film in the series is the slowest, with less plot than any of the others, and less at stake. With that said, the third film also gives a chance to slow down and see Doc and Marty's relationship, and a chance to no longer focus on special effects and cool set pieces, but instead on the characters. It's the least exciting of the three, but still a fairly good end to the trilogy.
1985 Doc is stuck in 1885, and according to a grave Marty and 1955 Doc find, 1985 Doc is going to be killed by Biff's great grandfather, cowboy Bufford "Mad Dog" Tannen. So Marty must travel back to 1885 to stop Doc from being killed, and to get both he and Doc back to 1985. Meanwhile, Doc has fallen in love with Clara (Mary Steenburgen), a science loving resident of 1885. After getting in the middle of things, Marty soon finds that he's the one that will be killed by Mad Dog, and he needs to find a way back.
I'll start with the positives on this one. This was the slowest of the films, so it gave a time to stop and really soak up the environment, and linger on the characters. In this way, it was more like the first film than the second. The first one was pretty slow paced, but focused a lot on relationships, and this one does the same thing. The film has a nice atmosphere, and despite not being as impressive a set as the one's featured in the first, and especially the second, the western set is still impressive. This one also wraps itself up nicely, ties up all the loose ends introduced in the second film, addresses all the plot points mentioned in part two, and leaves us with a nice message to sum up the trilogy.
The negatives? Well, this film just kind of feels anti-climactic. It's like the first film starts off slow and built up to the crazy fast paced second which is huge and puts everyone's life on the line, and then we get to the third, which is slower than the first film, and only prominently features Marty and Doc from the previous films. The film has somewhat of an exciting climax, that incorporates elements from all three films, but nothing is really new. Most of this stuff is just retread from the first two films, with only a few new elements.
This is an entertaining film, and fairly fun, but definitely the weakest of the three films for me. It just feels like it's kind of running out of steam compared to the other two, but the ending leaves a nice message.
My rating: *** out of ****. 115 mins. PG for language and violence.