Future bright

Rating: 7/10 (25 October 2013)

My big mistake watching this film was seeing it out of sequence. I'm sure I saw B.T.T.F.1 on its original release, but don't remember catching numbers 2 & 3 when they first came out. So maybe I should have held off viewing this, the final episode in Marty & the Doc's time-travelling adventures, but if I lopped off the framing elements at the beginning and of this the third feature, it was still easy to enjoy this typically bright, humorous and action- packed Robert Zemeckis film.
This time, to prevent the Doc's death in a past-life, our intrepid heroes have to double- back in time (with thanks to ZZ Top) to the old West to fix the time-line and still find a way back to their own time, a tricky task given that the DeLorean gets damaged en-route. Along the way, Marty meets his forebears and the Doc falls in love, the climax of the western section being a high noon showdown between Marty and a demonised Biff, before the expected race against time for Marty and the tying up of loose ends epilogue.
I liked the film a lot, like the runaway train at the end it picks up speed as it goes and even if Zemeckis does pile on the climaxes a bit, it entertains all the way. As before, Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd pal about well together, while Mary Steenbergen is a welcome newcomer as Lloyd's surprise love-interest. The special effects don't always quite come off, but there are some neat humorous touches, like when Marty and the Doc exchange catch-phrases and especially Marty's preferred post-breakfast gunfighting preference. Marty's back-story about meeting his great-great grandparents is weakened by him having clumsily play both parts but otherwise this was a good-natured, matinée-adventure fun movie. Now to go back to the past and watch parts one and two.