Back to the Glaring Paradox
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Hmm...the shoes still look fake.
It’s a bit confusing, the effects are a little dated, and the ending is just a bit of a contrived device, but Back to the Future II still ends up being one of my favorite time travel movies, simply because of the scope and breadth of the story. Like I’ve said before, a little charm goes a long way. And all the actors have their charm turned way up here, including Michael J. Fox, Michael J. Fox, and Michael J. Fox!
We start our story mere seconds after the original film, but, with one small difference. 1985 Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) witnesses the events of the ending of the first film, specifically a flying DeLorean seemingly exploding in midair. Let the time paradoxes begin! For all this, the rest of the story is sound, except for this one minor detail (and, feminists, it’s not the mistreatment of our new Jennifer ((Elizabeth Shue))) YOU CAN’T GO TO THE FUTURE TO MEET YOURSELF! If you remove yourself from the time stream in 1985, you cannot go to 2015 and see how things will turn out for you. It will seem as though you’ve simply disappeared, and your younger self turns up in the future. That’s it! Whew…now that that’s out of the way, I feel better for having talked it out. Thanks!
Our story begins when Old Biff (Thomas Wilson again! Oh, those wily casting directors!) hijacks the DeLorean unbeknownst to Doc (Christopher Lloyd) and Marty (Michael J. Fox…who, in the future, plays old Marty, his son, and his daughter) and heads back to November 5, 1955 (That’s right, the beginning of time travel) to deliver a sports almanac to his younger self in the hope of changing his life for the better. Unfortunately he changes his timeline in such a way that when he returns to the future, he’s erased…much like the threat against Marty in the first film. He also changes things in such a way that it throws all the characters from the first film’s lives into turmoil. Doc and Marty decide to head back to 1955 to set things right. What follows is some of the craftiest same character interaction on film.
What makes such a thing extraordinary is that this type of special effect was already old, but given to us in such a new way in Back to the Future II that it literally changed the face of film history. Things have improved since, but not by much. Also, my beloved vision of the future being filled with flying cars is realized! And realized very well. My favorite part of this film, however, is watching Marty revisit scenes from the first film that he was already in, under threat of world ending paradox to not run into himself. So, while we get to see scenes we’ve seen play out before, we get to see them from an all new perspective. It really does lead to an amazing bit of storytelling, and one that ends up with Michael J. Fox taking a door to the face, that, according to my DVD, he really did, just so it would look great on film. Which, it does. Great and altogether fucking painful.
Elizabeth Shue is a welcome addition to the cast, and Christopher Lloyd really ups the value of his character. Lloyd’s technobabble and pseudoscientific explanations of alternate timelines is fantastic. Thomas F. Wilson’s multiple performances in this film threatens to outstrip Michael J. Fox’s as he plays 1985 Biff, 2015 Biff, alternate 1985 Biff, and 1955 Biff! Marty and Doc both emerge actually more heroic and dashing than they did in the previous film, and that’s really saying something. I’ll say this for this film. It’s a placekeeper for the third film…which I’ll be reviewing next week.
If you get the chance, sit down and watch them all together, and your time will not have been ill spent. And be kind to Robert Zemeckis…He set the bar amazingly high with the fantastic Back to the Future. While you can’t improve on perfection, you can add to it, and I think that’s what he does here. So, see you next week for Back to the Future III!
Tags: Review, Science Fiction
Posted on November 10th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
One of my various projects when I begin learning Adobe Premiere is editing all three BTTF flicks together as one film because I love watching them back to back.
BTTF is actually my favorite of the trilogy, but they’re all great taken together (kind of like Lord of the Rings). I remember going to the theatre with my dad back in the day to watch this, and I still consider it one of my favorite movie-going experiences because I idolized Marty McFly so much as a child… I used to play BTTF in Kindergarten with our toys during playtime (I even had my own Doc, Jennifer, and Biff to play with).
Now that I think about it, Kindergarten BTTF Time was probably my first crack at filmmaking/directing, except I didn’t have a camera or whatever… thanks for reminding me of that, Bryan!
Posted on November 13th, 2009 at 10:52 am
1.21 Jigowatts!
Posted on November 14th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Chris…Marty is my FAVORITE hero in all of filmdom for one very simple reason. Look at everything that happens to him, and does he let it get him down? Not a jot! It’s not even that he’s on top of things. He just knows (and it’s reinforced by Doc) that there are things that HAVE to be done no matter what, and Marty McFly makes shit happen! I could see Marty facing a horde of Ninja (and I’m not referring to that scene in The Hard Way) and somehow making it work. That’s the beauty of the character!
Posted on November 14th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
The other great thing about Marty is that none of the BTTF films really revolve around him, even though he’s the hero of each one. The first film is about George, the second is about Biff, and the third is about Doc. The only thing that makes Marty the central character (aside from his badass-ness) is the fact that the films are told from his perspective.