Film Reviews

Back to the Future

• Rating:
• Director: Robert Zemeckis
• Starring: Crispin Glover
• Details: US/116mins (PG)

The 80s classic that started a mammoth grossing trilogy and made a bona fide movie star out of Michael J. Fox is back on the big screen and digitally remastered; so grab the youngster in your life and take them to see what blockbusters used to be made of. Whilst time hasn't been particularly kind to some of the effects in Robert Zemeckis' time travel adventure, given its mid-80s launch that is to be more than expected. Still a fun ride, with a plot that is deceptively quirky for such an overtly commercial flick, this is worth revisiting on the big screen for the pangs of nostalgia that it will evoke alone.
Fox is popular teen Marty McFly, who is inexplicably friends with the local nutjob, Doc Brown, a genius eccentric who has discovered how to build a machine (into a Delorean) that can take its occupant through time. When some nasty Libyan terrorists turn up one night, looking for the plutonium he promised he would use to help them build a bomb, Marty inadvertently travels back to 1955 and stops his parents from meeting. Causing a ripple effect that will result in the non-existence of him and his brothers and sisters, Marty has but a few days to fix it so his folks meet and fall in love again, and he can continue to be around and wear silly clothes that look like they were nicked from a Chuckie doll.
The film that established the still underrated Zemeckis as a force to be reckoned with in American cinema, also has the finger prints of its producer, Steven Spielberg, all over it. Save for Marty's mother continually coming on to him, and the subplot involving the aforementioned Libyan terrorists upset with the lack of explosions, this is your typical American sweetness, wrapped in shiny 80s packaging. It was how Zemeckis moved the story forward in the two sequels that was even more impressive - the second in particular is a smart and witty play on the shenanigans of the first.
You may have seen it already, but unless you were of age in 1985 you didn't get to see it like this. It might be another 25 years before you get to see it in cinemas, so make this time count.

Review by Mike Sheridan