Movie Review: Back To The Future Part III (1990)

The final chapter in the time travel Back To The Future trilogy, Part III settles down to a wild west comedy adventure with a bonus romance, and conjures up a richly satisfying conclusion.

The film opens in 1955, with teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) reconnecting with eccentric inventor Doc (Christopher Lloyd) after receiving a telegram sent by Doc from 1885, where he was accidentally sent by lighting at the end of Part II. Marty and Doc unearth the DeLorean time travel machine, as well as information that suggests the 1885 Doc is in imminent danger of being killed by the outlaw Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson).

Marty travels back to 1885, meets his ancestors Maggie and Seamus (Lea Thompson and Fox) and finds Doc established as a blacksmith. Doc saves the life of newly arrived teacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen), and they immediately fall in love. Meanwhile Mad Dog is threatening Doc's life due to a dispute over $80. With the DeLorean's fuel system damaged, Doc and Marty have to improvise a method to use steam engine power to travel back to the future, while Marty has to negate Mad Dog's threat and Doc has to decide whether to pursue an impossible love-across-time with Clara.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Part III pulls the trilogy together after the wayward Part II, and tidies up the story into a neat package. The final chapter benefits from the introduction of the series' first romantic subplot, with Doc finding his soulmate in 1885. Clara loves science and the imaginative books of Jules Verne just as much as Doc does, and she forces Doc to think, for the first time, about his own personal fate and the implications of all the time traveling on his happiness.

Another plus is Part III's focus on one time period. Just as the original invested its energy in 1955, Part III settles down in 1885, and is able to breathe deeply from the wild west origins of Hill Valley. The clock tower building is under construction, the town features the usual tensions between rough outlaw elements and settlers, and Marty adopts the name and ultimately cool persona of Clint Eastwood to navigate his way through the local conflicts. Combining steam engine technology with the DeLorean to cobble together enough speed for the requisite return to the future provides another worthy scientific challenge for Doc to overcome.

On a thematic level, Part III also resolves Marty's character arcs. The dangling threads related to his future are tied up with an evolved understanding of how to interact with lamebrained idiots, while despite all the time traveling, Doc raises Marty's awareness about the real beauty of the future.

Christopher Lloyd delivers likely his best performance in the series, and almost steals the movie entirely. His interaction with Michael J. Fox remains smooth, but Part III is more Doc's movie than Marty's. Mary Steenburgen finally provides a substantive female counterweight, while Lea Thompson has some fun opposite Fox in representing Marty's immigrant ancestors. Thomas F. Wilson spreads his wings and evolves the abrasive Biff persona to the wild west, where the boorish behaviour ironically fits better.

While the originality of the first chapter can never be matched, Back To The Future Part III provides rewarding closure to a lovable trilogy.

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Movie Review: Back To The Future Part II (1989)

The first sequel to 1985's beloved Back To The Future time travel adventure comedy, Part II offers plenty of amusing time hopping but lacks focus and suffers from middle chapter syndrome.

After returning from 1955 to 1985 at the end of the first film's events, eccentric inventor Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) immediately whisks teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) off in the DeLorean time machine to 2015. Doc needs Marty to intervene and prevent Marty's son Jr. (also Fox) from getting involved in illegal activity with Biff's grandson Griff (Thomas F. Wilson plays both Biff and Griff).

Marty does prevent Jr. from getting into trouble, but in the process realizes that Marty grew up to be a weak man due to his inability to walk away from an insult. Worse still, in 2015 the elderly Biff gets his hands on an almanac covering the score of every sports event from 1950 to 2000. He steals the DeLorean, travels back in time and passes the knowledge to the young Biff. When Doc and Marty arrive back in 1985, they find a hell-on-earth created by a mega-rich and all-powerful Biff. Doc and Marty have to again travel to 1955 to prevent the almanac from falling into young Biff's hands.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Part II is more manic than cerebral. The film undoubtedly enjoys a high amount of madcap energy, and has fun imagining the future in 2015 and an alternate present in 1985, warped by Biff's evil. But this segment of the story is very much a bridge from the original episode to the trilogy's conclusion, and there is no hiding the sense of sideways drift.

Other than the imaginative portrayal of Hill Valley in 2015, the entire future-set sequence appears half-baked, leaving a lot more questions than answers as Doc and Marty quickly abandon the future and zip back first to 1985 and then 1955. The women in the story also suffer from neglect. Jennifer appears set to join the adventure before being summarily knocked-out for the duration, and mom Lorraine (Lea Thompson) is reduced to a caricature in a distasteful portrayal of the McFlys in 2015.

And the central quest to retrieve a sports almanac is fundamentally not that interesting, this chapter reduced to a classic McGuffin set-up devoid of human-centred emotion and compelling drama.

Still, there is enough adventure and imagination in the film to maintain interest, thanks in large part to Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reprising their roles and fine-tuning their unlikely duo dynamics. The gutsy teenager and wacky inventor are a formidable team, and convey a sense of problem solving ingenuity that powers over the bumpy aspects of the script.

Back To The Future Part II is a necessary elaboration, in itself an incomplete and vaguely unsatisfying work but nevertheless part of a lively journey.

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Movie Review: The American President (1995)

A romance set in the high altitude world of the White House, The American President benefits from a stellar cast and a balanced blend of love and politics, although the idealism does get somewhat mawkish.

Democratic President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas), a widower, is three years into his first term, eyeing reelection, and riding high in approval ratings. His team includes Chief of Staff A.J. (Martin Sheen) and policy advisor Lewis Rothschild (Michael J. Fox). Shepherd's first priority is the passage of a gun control bill, while an environmental initiative calling for carbon emission reductions is also on the agenda. The Global Defence Council, an environmental lobby group, hires Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening) to lobby the President and Congress and ensure that the carbon emission reduction targets are not watered down.

Shepherd is immediately attracted to Wade, and a courtship ensues, sending Washington into a tizzy. While Wade's new cachet helps her to win support for the carbon reduction bill, Republican presidential hopeful Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss) seizes on the President's White House romance to question his character, and starts to mercilessly attack both Shepherd and Wade. The President takes the high road and his popularity starts to plummet, jeopardizing passage of the gun control bill, and forcing Shepherd into some difficult decisions.

Written by Aaron Sorkin, The American President is intellectual, romantic, thoughtful and witty. The film is a rarity in targeting an adult audience, avoiding any boorishness, and finding moments of humour without ever descending to childish behaviour.

But Sorkin cannot avoid veering into the land of idealistic grand gestures, and when the President's love life finally collides head-on with the realities of his political agenda, the resolution is through the sort of noble policy U-turn, delivered with sombre drama in the White House press room, that can only exist in a screenwriter's head. Sorkin would go on to create television's The West Wing as a quasi spin-off from The American President, television a more appropriate venue to peddle simplistic solutions to complex issues.

The more sappy moments of the movie are smoothed over by an excellent cast. Michael Douglas finds the perfect balance portraying the decisive leader of the free world who is also a living, breathing family man with emotions, reservations, and a need to love. Annette Bening is a perfect match, and she triggers some of the funniest moments as Sydney Ellen suffers severe foot-in-mouth during her first few interactions with the President. Once the romance blossoms, Douglas and Bening make an attractive couple, generating believable warmth and as much comfort as a relationship with the President can afford.

Director Rob Reiner provides steady pacing and avoids extremes of emotion or drama, allowing a relatively plausible story to unfold at a relaxed pace. To add colour Reiner calls on an outstanding supporting cast to keep the proceedings lively, with Martin Sheen a steadying influence as the President's long-term friend, confidant, and now Chief of Staff. In contrast, Michael J. Fox is the highly strung, phenomenally smart domestic policy advisor, built and designed to anticipate and worry. Richard Dreyfuss sinks his teeth into the role of the antagonist Senator Rumson, breathing concealed fire while offering nothing of substance in a naked lunge for power.

With glamorous Washington DC settings providing an enchanting backdrop, The American President glides to success, perhaps not in a landslide but with a comfortable majority.

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Movie Review: Back To The Future (1985)

A bright, cheerful and fast-paced comedy, Back To The Future elevated Michael J. Fox into movie stardom, established Robert Zemeckis as an A-List director of thoughtful comedies, and spawned two sequels. The DeLorean time-travelling car, the Flux Capacitor, and the Doc Brown character have had a long-lasting and fondly-remembered impact on popular culture.

Marty McFly (Fox) is a teenager in the small town of Hill Valley, California, struggling to fit in and embarrassed by his parents. Marty's Dad George (Crispin Glover) is a meek nerd, easily pushed around and insulted by his boss Biff (Thomas Wilson). Marty's Mom Lorraine (Lea Thompson) is conservative and a nag.

Marty's best friend is the local eccentric inventor Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). Brown has invented something called the Flux Capacitor, and used it to convert a DeLorean car into a time travel machine. Brown seeks Marty's help to record the maiden journey of the DeLorean, but angry Libyan terrorists show up at the wrong time and force Marty to take refuge in the car and zip back in time to 1955.

It's the year that George and Lorraine met and fell in love. Marty's sudden appearance in Hill Valley of 1955 immediately causes a stir, and he disrupts the events that ignite George and Lorraine's high school romance. In fact, the young Lorraine immediately develops a crush on the cool Marty, ignoring the doofus George, who is already being continuously harassed by the bully Biff. Unless Marty can get his parents to fall in love, his existence will be erased.

Marty also has to seek the help of a young Dr. Brown (although he looks pretty much the same in 1955 and 1985) to travel back to the future, taking advantage of an impeding lighting storm. Marty has a week to frantically find a way to make sure that his parents do indeed fall in love, and in the meantime he takes every opportunity to improve their personalities along the way.

With Steven Spielberg as one of the Executive Producers, Back To The Future strikes the perfect balance between superior quality and self-depreciation. Director Robert Zemeckis directs with brisk pacing, making every scene count and sharply defining the key characters. While the film never aims for more than two dimensions, Fox ensures that Marty is eminently likable, and Lloyd makes Doc Brown, with his wild white hair and perpetually wide eyes, one of the more memorable mad scientists in movie history.

Lea Thompson gets the least showy but most delicate role. The film handles the potentially precarious covetous relationship between the young Lorraine and her teen-aged son with a playfully steady hand, and steers it to an unexpected but in retrospect obvious resolution.

The highlights are many, and include the DeLorean leaving flaming tire marks as it launches into time travel, Marty's skateboard antics, and his over-enthusiastic electric guitar shredding at the high school dance. Back To The Future's formula for success involves poking fun mostly at itself, and the film creates a rich environment with plenty of targets, and hits them all square on the funny bone.

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