The Humans

Director: Robert Zemeckis.

Writers: Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale.

Cinematographer: Dean Cundey

Cast: Michael J. Fox. Christopher Lloyd. Mary Steenburgen. Thomas F. Wilson. Lea Thompson. Elizabeth Shue. James Tolkan. Flea! ZZ Top!

Back to the Future III: Does it Work?

Almost. Though the third (and least seen) film in the series has a lot of the bloat present in the second film, the wild west setting helps alleviate some of the glaring headache of it. First of all, there’s not the Looney Tunes vision of the future to contend with [for the most part]. Secondly, there’s not so many goofy incarnations of Michael J. Fox this time around. There is his poorly accented old west relative who plays a part, but the weirdly ironic fact about the dude is that in many of his scenes he looks a lot like Eric Stoltz.

But it almost works. Not enough to justify Back to the Future being a trilogy rather than one good film, but it’s a decent diversion.

Back to the Future III: Why it ALMOST Works.

Thomas F. Wilson is on fire here, making the Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen by far the best of his ‘Biff’ characters, chewing scenery and actually delivering a scary performance. He drags Marty McFly through town by his neck and almost hangs him in their first confrontation, so though there’s not the same bumbling silliness there it works. Sadly, he doesn’t have Billy Zane and Casey Siemaszko as his underlings this time around.

Mary Steenburgen adds
much needed shading to the story and Doc Brown is a lot more interesting
as a sort of romantic peacemaker than a crazy scientist who seems off
his meds. There’s a little more of a happy-go-lucky vibe to this film
even though it still does often succumb to revisiting old jokes and
signatures it feels lighter. There was a burden to serve the layered time travel subplots for the last two films but with the end in sight it’s obvious that everyone realized they were about to put this vital and special part of their lives to bed.

As a result, it has heart and warmth so desperately needed in the second film. Though the middle film was intentionally darker and ended on a cliffhanger, it’s still a serious misfire.

Back to the Future III: All Those Years Later.

It’s sort of a forgotten animal now, and revisiting it explains why. It’s slight. The characters of Doc Brown and Marty are on autopilot and it’s odd to see them so indifferent to each other in the film’s middle. It’s uneven and I can imagine it’d have been a dreadful bore for nonfans of the Western genre.

There is one infuriatingly bad moment where Doc has a molecule of liquor and is immediately dead drunk and unable to save Marty until the last possible second. These films should be too good for that kind of malarky.

Back to the Future III: What is its Legacy?

It’s the Matrix Revolutions of its time. The middle film was so bloated and dull that by lessening the throttle and aiming lower in terms of ambition and effectiveness it works as a smaller but slightly better end to a story that was better off staying at one film. There’s nothing about either sequel that makes the legacy of the franchise any brighter. They made money and they’re still relevant to fans today but the actual product as it stands: mediocre.

Yep. Back to the Future is a mediocre franchise. And no, I love movies and still have the wonder of a child when the right projects touch me whether they be The Iron Giant or Wall-E or whatever else. I just have to come clean and be honest with myself about these three movies. They aren’t the gold standard.

Think of all the phenomenal special features from the DVD versions that were already released. Those well appointed versions of yore. Those special features are here. Think of the newfangled Blu-ray features like Pocket BLU (a virtual remote), BD Live (internet content), and U-Control (where there’s trivia and storyboards and connective tissue about the plot that comes up as you watch. That’s all there.

There are tons of featurettes (including footage of Eric Stoltz as Marty), including a nice candid series of discussions with Michael J. Fox. There are three commentary tracks and three Q&A commentary tracks taken from a live Q&A session. Deleted scenes, some of which I didn’t even know existed.

Tons and tons of features plus digital copies of all three films.

It’s an insane package, a true Back to the Future graduate program. Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis are so hardwired to these films that it’s impossible not to get swept up in their stories and fall in love with the vision of what they wanted to make and what they had to go through to make it. This is truly the series made possible by Romancing the Stone, which is crazy.

I discovered through watching the films that I’m not really a Back to the Future fan.
I discovered through watching the special features that I am again.

That’s the highest compliment I can give to special features. They are worth buying a Blu-ray of films you’re not all that fond of anymore. I can only imagine how die-hard fans of the series are going to feel about it. A four-leaf clover wrapped in rainbows and chocolate.

8.0 out of 10

The Humans

Director: Robert Zemeckis.

Writers: Robert Zemeckis. Bob Gale.

Cinematographer: Dean Cundy.

Cast: Michael J. Fox. Christopher Lloyd. Thomas F. Wilson. Lea Thompson. Elizabeth Shue. James Tolkan.

Back to the Future II: Does it Work?

Here’s where I’ll get ripped. No, it doesn’t work. Back to the Future II takes everything from the first film and tries to one-up it, revisiting things from the original and not leaving stuff well enough alone. With the film bouncing back and forth from the mid 80’s to 2015 and back to the mid 50’s there’s a lot of opportunities to revisit previous moments and a lot more to create a vision of what the world would look like thirty years down the road.

A lot of opportunities.

But it simply collapses under its own weight and how gimmicky so many of the ideas are, visual gags that when piled on top of each other distract from the perfectly simple story told in the original. Back to the Future isn’t Primer. It’s not even Time After Time [still my favorite time travel flick]. It doesn’t need to be. It needs to stay nestled in the comfort zone created by the original.

Back to the Future II: Why it Doesn’t Work.

Marty McFly and Doc Brown are a really good duo, especially when Michael J. Fox is able to be charismatic and effortlessly witty. Doc Brown, even though he’s screaming and bugging his eyes out even more this time around (because subtlety was shitcanned for this installment) is still a delightful movie character and possibly the best one the vastly underappreciated Christopher Lloyd has ever had [though Taxi‘s Reverend Jim is in a class all his own]. These great characters spend the majority of this film either dealing with massive expository scenes about time paradoxes and not changing history [which leads to some dreadful scenes, especially one where Marty tries to get a sports almanac back from first Biff and then James Tolkan’s Mr. Strickland]. It’s a bore and though many complained that the intricate plot made the story convoluted, it’s not rocket science. It’s just not good. Worse yet, we get to see Michael J. Fox lay down the template for Eddie Murphy as he very poorly portrays different family members, including a very horrible female incarnation, as seen below…

…and this nightmare:

On top of that we get a mentally challenged future Marty. It’s not the intricate time travel plot that’s at fault, it’s the sheer overload of bad ideas. Between the future concepts that seem more akin to the satirical tone of Total Recall or Robocop and the shameless Pepsi and Texaco plugs, my head was spinning. The Jaws 19 joke with its cutesy Spielberg jab, it’s just wrong.

Worse yet, by rehashing or overselling familiar aspects from the first film here not only is the nostalgia value scuttled, it makes those moments cheaper.

Back to the Future II: All These Years Later.

There’s one thing that stands out in this film, something that I never gave much notice to during its run (I only saw this film in theater once and on VHS once) and that is the stellar work being done by Thomas F. Wilson as Biff and his various relatives and incarnations. Classic sci-fi tales are often only as good as their villains and Wilson does really good work and oftentimes under heavy prosthetics. He ‘gets’ the tone and is larger than life and wholly willing to make a fool of himself and as a result he rises above the material. His work is truly great stuff.

Otherwise, there’s just a lot of stuff here that is too clever for its own good. The big hoverboard set piece is awful, and the image of Marty McFly helpless above the water futilely trying to paddle is symbolic for the tone of this whole movie. From the lame diner sequence with the Ronald Reagan/Ayatollah/Michael Jackson Max Headroom ‘waiters’ to the kitsch they chose to personify the era, it all makes me glad that in the real 2010 we’ve avoided becoming their vision of futurefolk.

Back to the Future II: What is its Legacy?

Its legacy is that it’s a guilty party in the long line of sequels that got bloated. With more money and more eyeballs peeking, Robert Zemeckis and his gang stripped the warmth and fun from the franchise-to-be and turned it into a mess that despite having some good little moments is essentially a waste of time.

Back to the Future was all we needed. There is nothing about this film that indicates the kind of sequel that works. It’s the same damn story as the first movie, but without the nuance and intimacy.

and now onto the third film…

BUY IT AT

AMAZON: CLICK

HERE
STUDIO: Universal
MSRP: $79.98
RATED: PG-13
RUNNING
TIME: 81 Minutes
SPECIAL
FEATURES:

• Blu-ray Exclusives
• U-Control Setups & Payoffs: Note key scenes and see how they play out as you watch the movies
• Storyboard Comparison: Compare key scenes in the movie with the original storyboards.
• Trivia Track: Get inside trivia and facts while you watch the movies.
• Pocket BLU: Experience Blu-ray in an exciting new way with the app for iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, Android and more
• BD-Live: Access the BD-Live Center through your Internet-connected player and download even more bonus content, the latest trailers and more
• My Scenes: Bookmark your favorite scenes from the movies
• Bonus Features
• “Tales from the Future:” 6-part retrospective documentary featuring all-new interviews with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Director Robert Zemeckis, Producers Bob Gale and Neil Canton plus Executive Producer Steven Spielberg
• “In the Beginning…” Time to Go Keeping Time Time Flies Third Times the Charm The Test of Time The Physics of Back to the Future
• 16 Deleted Scenes
• Michael J. Fox Q&A
• Archival Featurettes
• The Making of Back to the Future Parts I, II & III
• Making The Trilogy: Chapters One, Two & Three
• Back to the Future Night
• The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy
• Behind-the-Scenes Outtakes
• Original Makeup Tests
• Nuclear Test Side Ending Storyboard Sequence
• Outtakes
• Production Design
• Storyboarding
• Designing the DeLeorean
• Designing Time Travel
• Hoverboard Test
• Designing Hill Valley
• Designing the Campaign
• Photo Galleries Including Production Art, Additional Storyboards, Behind-the-Scenes Photographs, Marketing Materials and Character Portraits \
• Music Videos “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News
• “Doubleback” by ZZ Top
• Back to the Future: The Ride Q&A
• Commentaries with Director Robert Zemeckis and Producer Bob Gale
• Feature Commentaries with Producers Bob Gale and Neil Canton
• Digital Copies of Each Film

The Pitch

Young Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to when his parents were his age, and in addition to making sure he doesn’t change history he has to find a way to get back to the present day.

The Humans

Director: Robert Zemeckis.

Writers: Robert Zemeckis. Bob Gale.

Cinematographer: Dean Cundy.

Cast: Michael J. Fox. Christopher Lloyd. Thomas F. Wilson. Lea Thompson. Crispin Glover. James Tolkan.

The Intro…

It’s fitting that while we’re in the midst of a CHUD List about the Sacred Cows of Hollywood that the Back to the Future trilogy would find its way to my desk. As many were, I was a huge fan of the first movie when it arrived on the scene in 1985. It’s a delightful film, sweet and charming and funny but also smart enough to take the time travel aspect seriously and invest some new ideas along the way. Watching it now, it’s kind of a patchwork at times but in way it’s a perfect little movie. For what it is.

With that said I will now also say that I strongly believe this should have been a one and done series. Though there are great moments to be had in both sequels, Back to the Future is a nice little tight self contained story that loses so much of its charm when the idea is steamrolled into three films. The story of Marty McFly and Doc Brown is simply not strong enough to support three films and the gimmicky and too-clever-for-its-own-good approach wears very thin over the course of the two sequels. As a result I was very surprised to discover just how not sacred these cows are.

But there’s still plenty to love in a Blu-ray set that will overwhelm all but the most devoted and meticulous of BTTF fans.

Back to the Future: Does it Work?

Yes. This film works and it works very well, but not for the reasons I thought.

What makes this film work isn’t Michael J. Fox, a fact which surprised me as this was a massive springboard for the actor. In actuality, Fox delivers a sometimes effective and sometimes showy performance as Marty McFly that is far from consistent and certainly not as crisp as I remembered. Everyone knows he replaced Eric Stoltz during production so it’s certainly understandable and forgivable that there are moments where he’s having to do a lot with very little. Luckily he’s a very charismatic actor and able to keep it together.

What makes this film work also isn’t Christopher Lloyd, a fact which surprised me as it was Doc Brown who was my favorite character as a child. In actuality, Lloyd does a lot of acting with his big, buggy eyes and screams almost every line of dialogue. Over the course of three films it gets to be too much at times and luckily Christopher Lloyd’s personality is so lovable and strong that it usually isn’t a concern. But, there are times when it seems like he’s in The Goonies he’s so manic.

But it really does work…

Back to the Future: Why it Works.

What makes this film work is the way a whole bunch of odd factors combined to make something that shouldn’t have worked feel warm and inviting. It’s similar to Jaws in that regard, actually. Though the filmmakers went though incredible effort in the subsequent films to make the world seem tightly knit, a lot of happy accidents seemed to happen ranging from Robert Zemeckis allowing Lloyd to choose the look of his mad scientist character to the decision to change the time travel machine from a fridge to a Delorean. On top of all that there’s the last minute actor swap, a factor that had to massively change the fate of the film in history. A lot of pieces fell into place on a project that was kicked around a long time and for a long time seemed to have no shot at getting made. Tons of old age makeup on then-unknown actors, shoehorning a lot of current pop culture aspects into a chassis where they could be played for laughs in the past. A lovable leading character who steals plutonium from terrorists after being commissioned to make a bomb? Borderline incest?

This really shouldn’t have worked.

Back to the Future: All These Years Later.

The 80’s have a weird hue to them when revisited. More so than any decade in my lifetime. Movies have this ebb and flow that if you revisit them at the right time they maintain the magic and have that electricity. How much is legit and how much is the numbing glow that youth adds to the mix? It’s all the difference in the world. It’s why The Lost Boys was the coolest horror movie I’d ever seen in the late 80’s and now it’s a sort of ridiculous guilty pleasure in the oughts. Back to the Future is not a movie hampered by golden memories.

But the same can’t be said about its sequels.

Back to the Future: What is its Legacy?

This is a mini-classic. Emotions be damned, this is a very cute movie with some very strong moments and some really memorable characters but it’s really kind of a small and delightful little movie. There are so many things that threaten to cheapen it (things which I think were handled poorly in subsequent installments) but never do and it’s a testament to the amount of love that’s plainly evident in every frame of this movie. It’ll forever be remembered as one of the best mainstream movies of a very tumultuous and transcendent decade in film.

and now onto the second film…