"Great Scott!"
"I know, this is heavy."
Next up on my look at Mildly Contested Sequels, we're looking at the capstone to a trilogy near and dear to anyone versed in the exuberant and hair conditioner-abusing annals of eighties cinema--Back to the Future. Recently turned 35, the first film remains a pretty nifty comedy with time-travelling DeLoreans, flux capacitors, the best-known movie rendition of Johnny B. Good, all that stuff.
Naturally, it was a hit, and two sequels were filmed more or less back to back--the first, Part II, came out in 1989, and was arguably one of those sequels to exceed the first. There's more time travelling, more stakes, and a bigger threat, with a villain who's based on, er, someone pretty close to home right now as a matter of fact. And, of course, everyone loved the vision of far flung 2015 that didn't even try to be prescient, to the fact that reaching that date basically became an event that year. They even had self-lacing shoes and hoverboards after all! Well, sorta!
But not as many talk about Part III. It was advertised right at the end of Part II as a post-credits trailer, not too far off from how Marvel does things I guess, but even then some folks basically dismissed it. Admittedly, it was a tough act to follow; and while it did still do well financially, it's fair to say it didn't make quite the tumultuous pop culture impact of the first. Let's see why that might be, and where I stand on it. I gotta admit, this is probably the first film in the series I glimpsed, on TV as a young 'un, but it was fleeting enough that it's not going to color my perceptions here...
We pick up right where the last one left off, with time-travelling teen Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) stuck in the 1950s following a series of events far too convoluted for me to explain in anything less than essay form. Turns out his inventor friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) got himself stuck in the last century in 1885, where unfortunately it seems like he might meet an inadvertent doom. And so, Doc Brown has to help Marty go back to save...himself, on a message also sent forward in time from himself...
This is why you don't dwell too much on time travel stories, folks. Bafflement and decades of spaghetti-twisting fan theories ensue.
Anyway. Marty pops on back, crashes into the Wild West right into the middle of a chase between cavalry and Indians, and by luck meets some of his own ancestors who ease him into the town of Hill Valley in its early days. I think straight off one of the flaws here is the relative lack of urgency; it doesn't have the desperate pace the last two did, of Marty rushing around trying to fix his past. Watching it as a trilogy, this might allow for a breather, but it's a rather leisurely trapse through a theme park version of the old west at first.
Things do pick up when we meet our bad guy, Mad Dog Tannen (Thomas F Wilson), ancestor to the high school asshole jock Marty had to clash against in the last two films, except this one has six-shooters in place of fists and badly phrased insults. After that, it's Marty and Doc trying to figure out how to get back home, except this time there's nothing more advanced than steam power, and that does add a touch more interest to proceedings that by now, we've more or less seen before.
Then, we do get introduced to something some accuse of dragging down the film--Doc's love interest, contemporary teacher Clara (Mary Steenburgen). From here, we focus more on the relationship between them, and while I didn't hate it nor her character, it didn't thrill me either. Next to the fairly well done drama, comedy, and adventure shenanigans of last time, it's not exactly riveting.
That's not to say there aren't highlights--we have some fun and laughs of our two leads putzing around a fair, with a fun cameo from ZZ Top, stakes raised, and the actors are clearly having fun (Fox for instance was keen to get into a bowler-hat clad double role as Marty's own immigrant ancestor). And once we do get to the climax, it's a nice little ride with DeLoreans, runaway locomotives, and hoverboards all being put into play--even if before, we do have some of the same jokes on repeat. Remember the bits with the manure wagons? This one sure does.
And, well, everyone remembers that end part with the flying steampunk-style time train. More importantly, though seeing the character of Doc himself in that scene finally settled with a family does put a nice coda on things, and also sets things up for a spinoff animated series that nobody in the world seems to remember.
That wasn't entirely the end for Back to the Future; it came back eventually with some interestingly done adventure games in the 2010s, comics, and so on, around that resurgence of interest circa that pivotal date of 2015, where we never did get that flying car future we were promised, but I guess it wasn't 2016 at least. Still, Part III? It's definitely a bit of a slump after the first two, but by itself, it has enough charm to be watchable, and it's certainly not bad or anything. You have enough little touches to see that the makers cared enough--veteran western actors make cameos, there's Doc's funky old-timey gadgets, and everyone's favorite long-bearded rockers adding some fine strumming. I would suggest a little gap between watching this and Part II, just to get into the right frame, but if you consider it less a grand finale and more a leisurely little diversion to cap off the manic ride before, there's enough gigawatt-fuelled entertainment for it to make the pass.
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