BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART II. Directed by Robert Zemeckis; written by Bob Gale; produced by Bob Gale and Neil Canton for Universal. Starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Thomas F. Wilson. Rated PG.
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Treat yourself to an early Christmas present and go see Back to the Future, Part II right away! If you are, like myself, an unabashed fan of Part I you will love this sequel that's more than just a sequel.
If by some unhappy chance you haven't seen the first movie, rent it first and watch it a couple of times before attempting Part II. Otherwise, the latter's rapid pace and lack of explanations will leave you feeling completely lost, instead of utterly delighted.
The current movie might not be QUITE as good as its predecessor, but it does come close. It doesn't give character development equal billing with the razzle-dazzle storyline the way the first one did. But, then, these characters don't need additional development, since we pick up with them right where we left off 4 years ago.
The time-travel paradoxes do start to pile up, too, in the new movie; whereas in Part I you really had to hunt for them. But that's to be expected, given all the criss-crossing personal timelines in Part II.
You see, teenager Marty McFly (Fox) goes forward in time with zanily brilliant Doc Brown (Lloyd) to help straighten out his own teenage children, just as promised at the end of the first movie. But while these two good guys are hanging out in 2015, once-and would-be-bully Biff (Wilson), still around and mean as ever, gets hold of the Delorean time machine.
Talk about technology falling into the wrong hands! Biff manages to alter the past so as to make it practically unrecognizable. And all to his benefit and the McFlys' detriment, to be sure.
But just when all seems lost, the movie plays its most powerful trump card, doing what no mere sequel ever has. It replays events from the original movie, but from a totally different perspective as Marty revists 1955 and keeps Biff from rechanging the future that he (Marty) already changed once (for the better, of course) in Back to the Future, Part I. Confused? Well, trust me, it makes more sense, and is lots more fun, when you see it all happening than when you have to describe it.
December 13, 1989