In addition to being a great film, Back to the Future was also a summer megahit in 1985. A sequel was inevitable, especially since it was written into the ending. But Back to the Future Part II (1989) was a little disappointing, with its permutations of time travel becoming so convoluted that the viewer had to come up for air.
Although filmed at the same time as Part II, Part III is a much more ingratiating film. The focus is back on the characters, and the story has been simplified. The parallels are much more to the first film than its sequel, with the challenge of getting the DeLorean up to 88 MPH again creating entertaining suspense.
Part III has its problems, of course. The action slows during the middle, with perhaps one or two too many heartwarming bonding moments between Marty (Michael J. Fox) and Doc (Christopher Lloyd), and between Doc and Clara (Mary Steenburgen). The plot can be picked apart (more on this later). I can accept instant mutual love between Doc and his much younger admirer, although he's old enough to be her father. However, having just left him, would she go to such lengths, including risking her life, to return to him? For an old guy she met just a few days before?
Well, he did try to protect her from dancing with bandits. And he did save her life. Although, if she had been fated to plunge into a ravine before they had ever met, she wouldn't have been around to put an inscription on his tombstone. Doc was only at the ravine to plan a way for Marty to go back to the future. And Marty was only in 1885 to find a way to circumvent the tombstone inscription.
Also, if Doc had buried the DeLorean for Marty to travel back to 1885, then there wasn't a need to use a train to push it to 88 MPH. They could simply dig up that same DeLorean from its hiding place. But then again, if the DeLorean from 1885 was used to return to 1985, then it wouldn't be there in 1955 for Marty to use to go back to 1885.
Anyway, before I get the same migraine that Part II gave me, let me admit that Part III is just a comedy. The contradictions of time travel can be distracting, but then you will miss all the fun. Of course, you will miss it anyway unless you have seen Part I, to catch all the references.
Of which there are many. The rivalry between McFly and Tannen apparently goes back a full century, with the ancestors of Marty and Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) having the same characters, and played by the same actors. (The 'Oedipus complex' between Marty and his mother is finally consummated). We learn the origins of that wonderful clock tower that played such a part in the first film. There's the spinning license plate, the meticulous model that 'isn't built to scale', the ever present threats of cowardice and death, and the endless difficulty of getting the DeLorean into warp speed.
All of these references are charming to the first film, but not so much as the satire of old Western movies. Marty not only calls himself Clint Eastwood, he dresses in a poncho and dons a shield, as his mentor did in A Fistful of Dollars. There's the dusty town that looks like a dirt road with a set of cardboard buildings lined up on each side. The bar is filled with grizzled old timers, played by actors who once made the very films that Part III is sending up.
And it has to be said that screen chemistry exists between the boyishly exitable Doc and Marty. It must have been embarrassing for Michael J. Fox to still be playing a teenager, and have to shout "Doc!" every other page of the script. But it works, and the magic of the Back to the Future trilogy enabled Fox pick up a long series of paychecks for starring in lesser films like The Secret of My Success and Doc Hollywood. (71/100)
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