It's not a terrible film, but it's a letdown compared to the first

Rating: 5/10 (17 June 2016)

It's fair to say that BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III is the third and least of the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy; it's merely an average Hollywood comedy adventure movie with sci-fi flourishes, while the first two films in the trilogy were bona fide classics.
The problem with this film is that the science fiction material is really limited to just the first twenty minutes. For most of the running time, this film is merely an ordinary western adventure which seems happy to run through all of the clichés in the genre: there's the duel on the dusty screen, the gang of horse-riding villains, the showdowns in the saloon, the chases, and the unwanted romantic sub-plots. The inclusion of the Mary Steenburgen character was a particular reason I remember for disliking this film when I watched it as a kid.
It's certainly not a bad film, although it seems worse when you compare it to the earlier films. Michael J. Fox remains good value even though he's only required to go through the motions this time, although Christopher Lloyd's acting goes beyond the boundaries of ham and becomes quite ridiculous. Still, at least the movie picks up for the extended train sequence at the climax, which doesn't disappoint and recaptures some of the old movie magic.