Lacking decent cinematic entertainment these days (Fast Six? Seriously? Sparta says NO!), I could not but check on history to improve the present. Who’s the most reliably entertaining director? Robert Zemeckis! What’s the film that did entertainment me most consistently over the decades? “Back to the Future”!
It is surprising every time: Back to the Future (at least the first one, if one tends to be excessively critical) holds up, defies its age and would (I am quite sure) be a roaring success in the theatres if released today exactly as it was in 1985. It has two lovable characters at the center, it has a hate-able villain, and it has the liberty to be just about as silly as the time travel motive would allow. And that is very silly.
Watching the three films in a row is fanatastic, I never did do that before (I am not even sure whether I have seen the second part completely before…), and it show how skilled Zemeckis and his script writer (that would be … ah: Zemeckis, with Bob Gale) is in interweaving the motives and also the footage of the first film into the other two, without (at least to me) annoying the audience with being bluntly repetitive. I still do like first film best for its originality and humour, but contrary to popular opinion (i.e. Tomatometer) I very much like the second part, too, with its slight venture into what the future holds for us (and 2015 is still a bit away, I am sure the flying cars will come true! The 3D Shark of Jaws 19 did already!), without too much focusing on a science fiction vision.
Part 1 (1985): http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/back_to_the_future/
Part 2 (1989): http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/back_to_the_future_2/
Part 3 (1990): http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/back_to_the_future_3/
thomas4cinema 
2 Comments
Good review, I think you’re right it would be a roaring success in the theatres if put out today-just probably would have a lot more special effects now.
I love the trilogy, especially part 1 and part 3. Part 2 I never loved as much-maybe because it was darker.
It could be argued part 3 is a copy of the story structure in part 1, especially the endings, but it’s just so entertaining I hardly notice the similarties.
I actually like the fact that the structure is repetitive, as it’s done in quite a clever way, and feels more like a mocking reminder rather than a bold self-copy. Glad you enjoyed them as much as I did!