Sadly I am doing it at this hour and not in my usual format as the chord on my laptop stopped working and a new one has not arrived in the mail yet. So I have had to use other computers and it's just a huge hassle. So, the reviews for all three will be in this one post.
Back to the Future:
As (Wednesday) was October 21, 2015, plenty of different entities celebrated the Back to the Future franchise due to part of the second film partially taking place on that date. This includes various theatre chains across the world showing one or all of the movies; the Cinemark chain showed it in a marathon, and some spots on a giant XD screen. I made about a 2 hour round trip to see it that way, and while they obviously did not know it'd be that popular (considering how understaffed the concessions were in the two breaks between the films), at least it was a nice turnout and there wasn't too much idiocy. Throughout the day I'll post the reviews to all three films.
I'll be honest and say that when I was younger, while I saw all three films and enjoyed them they weren't watched often... which apparently puts me in a minority, at least that's what it looks like. But that is OK as I at least still dig them as an adult. I say that the original is still the best. Sure, the Oedipal subplot with Marty's mom falling in love with him is still pretty weird (and the reason why Disney-among other studios-didn't make the movie themselves) but then again a lot of weird things happened in the 1980's. Certainly, dorky white kid Marty McFly inspiring Chuck Berry with his sound and thus he ends up being a catalyst for the popularity of rock and roll... well, that plays differently now than it did back 30 years ago, and I won't get into the whole “racism!” debate. Let's not talk about the key part of the plot is that Doc Brown stole plutonium from Libyan terrorists; if made today that point would no doubt be completely changed.
This is still an effective film today as you enjoy the characters and the story. Marty is an average kid who has a girlfriend, wishes he could drive a cool truck, has parents who have a less than ideal relationship and the dad has always been bullied around, the high school principal has it out for him... many people could see themselves in him and I couldn't imagine anyone else besides Michael J. Fox in the role. They tried to do it with Eric Stoltz but it wasn't the best match and while he's a fine actor, I don't know if he could have been as great in the role. The same goes for Christopher Lloyd as mad scientist Doc Brown. Also, a lot of people could see themselves in George McFly, someone who should stand up for themselves but doesn't, and w/ a story of high school love... it's classic storytelling.
It is simply a pleasant story of an 80's kid getting sent back to the 50's and he gets to see his parents at his age and how they acted, and how different life was back then, and he has to fix the mess he caused or else he literally won't exist any longer. It is a pretty funny film as much of the jokes are timeless. It was expertly filmed and what an amazing score from Alan Silvestri. It works so well with the movie, as do the two Huey Lewis & The News tunes.
Overall, with all the elements I've mentioned already, I in addition need to say that the script is extraordinary; things are set up in the opening minutes and they pay off later on. A key theme is yet another feeling we can all relate to: wishing we could go back to the past in order to change something or have a key moment go differently so your life could turn out better. With such themes and strong filmmaking, it's no wonder why so many people think of this so fondly. That's the Power of Love.
Back to the Future Part II
In the review I posted a few hours ago of the first BTTF, I mentioned that I saw all three films in a marathon on the giant screen. People seemed to be most excited for this one; there were loud cheers when the movie mentioned what the date was that they went to the future. While there are some “wait a minute” moments with this entry, I know that I appreciate it more now than I did when I saw it as an 8 year old on the big screen in 1989.
As the end of the movie had them go to the future and the filmmakers weren’t expecting it to be a gigantic hit, they had to start from there. A big question in my mind is why Doc Brown was willing to help out Marty McFly’s son and have him not go to prison when not only was he dead set against changing anything in the past, but he did not tell Marty about a bigger event in his life that would happen soon and cause bad consequences for years to come… I know that with the first film if you thought about it hard enough, why didn’t some people in 1985 notice that Marty happened to look just like that mysterious Calvin Klein guy who was around for a week, made a splash then suddenly vanished… but even with that said, there’s some “huh?” moments in this film like that or wondering how 2015 old man Biff Tannen was able to operate the DeLorean time machine with no apparent problem… but I guess that’s better than having, say, giant plot holes due to time travel, which does happen in other movies of the type.
Anyhow… they go to October 21, 2015, Biff steals the time machine, the new 1985 has him as an evil rich figure who various people have compared to Donald Trump-and others say that Doc Brown looks like Bernie Sanders, but that’s enough of the politics talk from me-so they have to go back to 1955 and prevent a sports almanac from ending up with Biff. I do find it quite amusing that ended up being the universe changing device of the franchise, a too thin for the amount of info it should have sports almanac. At the time, a sequel where part of it takes place at the same time as a previous entry so sometimes you have two of the same characters running around and other times you have different characters interacting with the stars from an earlier entry and you see events that weren’t shown in said entry… in the past few years there have been several well-known films that have done this (I won’t spoil which ones they were) and BTTF 2 was definitely ahead of its time.
Story issues aside, I still enjoy this movie a lot. Those wonderful characters returning, there being funny moments in a darker story, the strong realization of what could happen if less than desirable people had the power to time travel, the quality filmmaking, another good score from Alan Silvestri… that does help a lot, along with them making such things as alternate timelines and other things that could be confounding to the average person not so difficult to understand, even if it may not be entirely accurate to how it’d actually happen if we actually had the ability to travel through time.
The popular thing this week is looking at what people thought the future would be 25 years ago and noting what they got right, wrong, and some things that are planned to be a thing in the next few years. They didn’t do so bad when it comes to predictions considering the hits included drones, biometric scans, video chats, and flat screen TV’s. If only we could have that food hydrator and we’d get cooked pizza in a few seconds... but anyway, this is a movie that I think many people like more now than they did at the time; as it was 1989 my mom, two sisters and I were all surprised by the cliffhanger ending and we were disappointed the story wasn’t finished yet.
Before this movie started yesterday, they showed the fake ads for the hoverboard and Jaws 19-which everyone loved-then the message from the Christopher Lloyd of today where he noted what the date was, stated that things weren’t quite as predicted (thank heaven we don’t have flying vehicles; people can’t drive as is when they’re on the ground), that is OK as we can all write our futures and we should make it a good one, which is great advice for all of us.
Back to the Future Part III
I concluded my movie watching last night by seeing the last (and I hope it stays that way; the very thought of a reboot is enough to give me cold sweats late at night) motion picture in this franchise, one that I was the least familiar with as I had seen it the least amount of times in my life.
This one isn’t fresh and original like the first movie and it isn’t the jumping through time wackiness of the second one, but at least it is still solid. Because of the ending of II, Doc Brown goes to the Old West of 1885 and as he always wanted to visit that time period, he is happy there. However, his death is discovered by Marty so he decides to go there against Doc’s wishes and tries to save him. The only complication is that Brown’s character is expanded upon as much to his surprise due to his scientific mind, he instantly falls in love with a lovely lady named Clara.
Things are straightforward here but that is alright. It is a little wacky to see some of the actors of the first two be brought back (I am not sure what to think of one of Marty’s ancestors looking just like his mom) but again that is alright. I don’t see enough Westerns so I was find with watching a sci-fi version of one where at times they go against stereotype, to humorous effect, or a famous moment from an old genre favorite is “borrowed” by one of the heroes.
The filmmaking craft is still great and the cast (from the protagonists to Thomas F. Wilson as a completely different Tannen character than the ones he’s done before, and also Mary Steenburgen as Clara) does a swell job with their roles, and seeing old Western veterans like Harry Carey Jr., Pat Buttram, Burton Gilliam (best known for Blazing Saddles) and Dub Taylor is nice for people familiar with the genre. The crowd I saw it with did enjoy the movie; it’s certainly the only time I’ve ever heard people enthusiastically applaud at someone ending up in a pile of crap!
At the very end, the DeLorean time machine is destroyed (to think that if it wasn’t for the franchise a lot of people today probably wouldn’t even know of that odd vehicle, as it was only around briefly in the early 80’s and by the time the movies began the company was long since defunct) and after that things get really ridiculous, even compared to what happened before. I suppose it happened because they wanted the fans to go home happy instead of having a wistful or melancholy feeling because the fate of an important character was left unclear. So, I won’t complain.
It’s not an epic ending to the trilogy but this movie is still pretty solid and when you look at how many of the third entries in a series end up poor no matter how good or great the first two were… I definitely won’t belly-ache despite rating this lower than I or II.
No comments:
Post a Comment