Back To The Future

Back to the Future falls into a caliber of films that I have a very hard time reviewing. It’s not like The Big Short where I watched this movie for the first time and was blown away by it so I have to write a review to let you know how I feel about it, Back To The Future is a different kind of film. It’s the kind of film I watched when I was a kid over… and over… and over again. It’s the kind of movie I can quote line for line in the exact tone and attitude given by the character. It’s the kind of movie where I know exactly what music is going to be playing and I have the soundtrack on my ITunes. The reason I’ve never reviewed Back to the Future is the same reason I can’t review the Star Wars films, they are so quintessential to my childhood that I find it very hard to be objective.  

However, I am going to try and be as objective as I can and give you the best review of Back to the Future I can. The truth is, the real subject matter to talk about is the sequels. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sequels just as much and probably watched them just as much, but there are a lot more things to talk about when it comes to the sequels then there is the first film. But if I can get this review done and give you as objective as a review as I can, maybe I can delve into other films that I’ve originally thought to be untouchables and give you my list of those films that I find absolutely quintessential to a movie going experience. We’ll see. But for now, here’s my review on Back to the Future.

The movie centers around high school student, Marty McFly (played by Michael J Fox). Marty is the high school student everybody wanted to be. He plays guitar in a rock band, he skateboards everywhere (I still think grabbing the back of cars to get around on a skateboard is awesome), he’s got a girlfriend who is crazy about him, he just has a lot going for him.

That is the first interesting thing about Back to the Future after watching it a billion times over and analyzing the story. They never suggest that Marty is unhappy with his life. Sure he has self-doubt about his music career, he’s unhappy about the car getting wrecked in the beginning but only because he was going to take it down to the lake with his girlfriend, and he thinks his parents are losers… which they are. But its never suggested that Marty would ever go out of his way to change the life he has right now. Too often movies will have the character overtly say, I WISH MY LIFE WAS DIFFERENT! Right before he has the opportunity to change it. With Back to the Future, you know the character, you know his circumstances and the rest is just an adventure in the 50s trying to fix a situation he accidentally created. That’s good writing because its not in your face and it makes the character more relatable and genuine.

Anyways, Marty has a friend named Doctor Emmett Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd) who is an aloof disgraced nuclear physicist.

Side note: There’s a great stand up bit by John Mulaney where he talks about how ridiculous of a concept Back to the Future had to have been when Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis brought this pitch to a studio. There is no way Back to the Future could have been made today because back in the 80s nobody questioned how a 17 year old boy can become friends with a disgraced nuclear physicist. There’s just no way. That was such an 80’s thing. It really makes me miss the 80s. Times were simpler.  

But Doc Brown is actually one of the most loveable and iconic character you will ever meet and these two really make one of the most iconic teams of all time. There is a reason Rick and Morty was a spoof of Doc and Marty because it’s so iconic.

But anyways, Doc calls up Marty and tells him to come and witness a breakthrough in science. And because we don’t question this relationship between this minor and a 40 to 80 year old man, Marty

obviously meets him at 1 in the morning to see this science experiment. This is where Doc reveals that he has invented Time travel and he has created a time machine out of a DeLorean car.

Doc gives a pretty brief but thorough explanation to allow the audience to understand the basic rules of time travel in this film and then the plot carries on when Doc is gunned down by Libyan terrorists he ripped plutonium off from and Marty escapes in the time machine, sending him back to 1955.

Stuck in the past, Marty must find Doc, but the Doc from 1955 who hasn’t invented time travel yet and find a way to travel back to the future. But while in awe of the world he has traveled to, he accidentally messes up his parent’s first meeting and endangers his entire existence. So it’s a race against time to make sure Marty’s parents fall in love and he gets back to 1985 before he’s stuck in the past forever.

And that’s the phenomenal thing about Back to The Future. It is such a creative and unique idea that
you would never expect from a time travel movie and yet it is so relatable and so much fun that it has really become an absolute classic.

Again, I can’t help but feel like I’m a little bit biased when I talk about this film because it was such a quintessential film to my childhood, but the truth is I don’t see much that doesn’t work with this film. The only thing I can really knock Back to the Future on is that it is a movie that only could have been made in the 80s. Like I said before, people would read too much into the fact that Marty is friends with a disgraced nuclear physicist now whereas in the 80s that was never questioned. That being said, this movie is not like others where it’s a product of the time. While there are parts that make this a quintessential 80’s film, this idea is a classic past its time and continues to be a cultural icon. It doesn’t feel dated, it has continued to be classic into the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s.

Much of that is supported by the great casting. The main five characters of the film are Marty, Doc, Marty’s mother Lorraine (played by Lea Thompson), Marty’s father (played by Crispin Glover), and Biff Tannen the school bully (played by Thomas F Wilson).

Starting with Michael J Fox. This movie really made him a household name from the start of his career. He had had some fame with Family Ties, but it was Back to the Future that made him the star that he is today and people still know him the best from this film. And its pretty common knowledge that he turned down the role and it was only because filming with Eric Stoltz didn’t mesh well with the film and they pushed hard to get Fox to play the role that it worked out so well. And I think that was one of the best decisions to push on. You always hear stories of how Tom Selleck was originally supposed to be Indiana Jones and it was only because he turned it down that we got the brilliance that was Harrison Ford in the titular role. Michael J Fox was an example of the opposite happening. It would be as if they had started Indiana Jones with Ford and it didn’t work out and they pushed for Selleck to rejoin. In 2016 we now know that that would have been a horrible choice, we know that pushing for Fox to play the role was the best choice ever.

Because I never saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off until recently, I always saw Marty McFly as the coolest kid I could strive to be. He was Ferris Bueller to me personally and I always thought he was the coolest. Fox works so well with that role that I cannot imagine anyone else in the role.

The same goes for Christopher Lloyd. Somehow this actor was able to create the most eccentric character you’ve ever come across and yet give him such heart and make you care about him so much. And the best part about the film is that you know what happens to him. You see him die in the beginning and, especially after multiple viewings, you’re so happy to see him return in 1955. He becomes such a loveable character and his 1955 self and his 1985 self are so seamless (especially in the sequels) that there are no disconnects.

But the real gold comes when these two are together. Like I’ve said multiple times, it’s an unlikely friendship but it’s so iconic and it works so well that you can’t imagine it done any other way.

The other characters are just as iconic. You’ve got Lea Thompson as the mother who is just down right hilarious. Yeah she’s a stereotypical female character and some people might say that she hasn’t exactly aged well from the 80s portrayal of women to now, but I still really enjoy that character. I think she’s funny, I think she’s relatable because everyone is somewhat interested to know what their

mothers were like in high school and the more you watch this movie and the more you grow up, you do see how people can change due to their circumstances. That’s not even a huge part of the movie, but Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover play that so well. Their younger selves are not the same as their older selves but you see where the connection is and you can imagine that kind of development going on as these characters grow up.

Crispin Glover gives one of the best performances I’ve seen from him ever and I can’t imagine anybody else in the role either. I’ll talk about this when I get into the reviews of the sequels but I’m incredibly bummed he had a falling out and didn’t appear in the second and third because of his performance in the first film. 

And then you've got Biff Tannen. Put aside the fact that Biff is definitely a rapist in this film, he's actually one of the greatest high school bullies. As a kid I was afraid of Biff because I didn't want to get bullied by him. I think Thomas F Wilson just nails it. He's not really the person you think of when you think of the Back to the Future series but he's just as quintessential to the trilogy, especially if you look at the sequels.

The fact of the matter is that Back to the Future is not just a good science fiction movie, its not just a good comedy, its just a good movie. It takes all these charming aspects about it and combines it into a really fun time that little to nobody wouldn't enjoy. I have never heard anybody come out of Back to the Future and tell me that they haven't been entertained by this movie.

There are a couple other things worth talking about the movie that I haven't talked about. One is the music. Not only do you have a fantastic soundtrack done by Alan Silvestri. And when I say fantastic I mean one of the most iconic soundtracks of all time and its not a John Williams score. But they also utilized the talent of Huey Lewis and the News to provide some of the most catchy and just down right iconic music to go along with a movie.

So overall, why is Back to the Future important?

Its something nobody was expecting, its something that is relevant today, and I think its one of, if not the best time travel story there is. While you have your Terminators and your other time travel films that are dark and gritty, Back to the Future gave us an adventure that is fun for the whole family. I've watched this film too many times to count and yet every time I watch it.

If you haven't seen Back to the Future yet, I cannot say it any more clearly, go see this movie. Put it at the top of your Netflix queue, skip work and watch this movie. I have put this movie in some of my top ten favorite movies of all time and its for a good reason.

But what do you think? What did I miss when talking about Back to the Future? Is there anything bad about it? Can someone who didn't like Back to The Future please say something, I actually want to know why you didn't like this movie. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I know I didn't say many (if any) bad things about this movie. I'll just leave that to the Honest Trailer people. Enjoy!