Back to the Future Part II (1989) Review

 

Back to the Future Part II (1989)

Back to the Future Part II follows Marty and Doc, who travel to the future to save Marty’s son. Biff from the future however, gets his hands on the DeLorean and goes back in time to change reality for the worse, causing Marty to go back to 1955 to right history. 

The first Back to the Future played on the fact that time, no matter when, is always relatively the same or similar. That is especially true for the sequel, which took the time hopping antics to a whole new level, bouncing between alternate timelines and three different decades. Part II is undoubtedly more ambitious (to say the least) and sometimes it works wonders and other times, falls a little flat (mainly in 2015). There's a really retro-futuristic vibe going on with the future and it's honestly, a little admirable.  They go extremely big with hover boards, odd clothing choices, flying cars, and a variety of zany predictions about the year 2015 (some being surprisingly accurate). Even though it's 30 years in the future, an excellent job is done to make it feel like both 1985 and 1955, with there being a lot of similarities in the way things go down. The movie definitely finds it footing back in 1955 though, returning with a familiarity and new perspective on the events of the first movie.

I like that this time around, nothing goes right. Marty succeeds and fails over and over again and seeing him try to right Biff's wrongs while avoiding his past self is once again, some good, hilarious fun. Part II though, for all intents and purposes, is really dark. George is killed by Biff (who is astoundingly even more of an ass in this), the future is grim for Marty and his family, and the alternate 1985 weirdly feels more akin to real life happenings of the time, instead of the bright and sunny current timeline of events. The first half is marred with tragedy and so going back to the past feels like a mental escape from all of the darkness of before (as well as an escape from the awful aged-up makeup everyone is sporting). I should also note that it is astounding how much the wild west setting of the third film is teased here, something I have admittedly never really caught onto before watching all of these back-to-back.

We get another stellar cast, starring Thomas F. Wilson, Lea Thompson, Elisabeth Shue, Christopher Lloyd, and Michael J. Fox. The absence of Crispin Glover is surely felt, but that doesn't stop those that return from nailing it once again. Wilson gets an even more expanded role this time, giving us a chance to really explore his character and understand why Biff is such a bad person. Fox also gives another terrific performance where he really settles into a time mediator role of sorts, but one where he still feels extremely out of his element.

Back to the Future Part II, directed by Robert Zemeckis, cleverly uses a mixture of new footage and old footage to bring everything full circle, and that's what makes this such a fascinating follow up to a movie that defined a genre, rewriting the script again to provide something new that we hadn't yet seen before. The struggle to get back the sports almanac, the callbacks and running jokes, as well the inventive looks and multiple eras some old, some new make this a really formidable sequel to a timeless classic. 

8.7/10