Back to the Future Part II

Back-to-the-Future-Part-II
Back to the Future Part II

Back to the Future Part II

The sheer ridiculousness of “Back to the Future Part II” is unparalleled; it’s a journey through various pasts and futures that baffles even its own characters, who spend most of the film trying to explain it to one another. I wish I had brought along a giant yellow legal pad to take notes on the time lines just to keep straight. And yet the movie is enjoyable because it’s so crazy.

Every time travel story ever written has raised this question, which has provided fodder for sci-fi writers since forever: what happens if you kill your grandfather? What do you say when you meet yourself? One well-known science fiction story tells of a time traveler who steps on a single bug in prehistoric times and wipes out all life forms in the future.

“Back to the Future Part II” is about how Marty McFly and Doc Brown (the heroes of the first movie) attempt to manipulate time without creating paradoxes, but end up accidentally creating an entirely different future one where Marty’s beloved mother is married to his worst enemy Biff Tannen. Michael J. Fox again plays McFly and Christopher Lloyd again plays Brown in this sequel, which they made back-to-back with “Part III.”

Indeed, this installment ends with a coming attraction trailer for next summer’s third part an unusual move not seen since Russ Meyer finished his movies with trailers. You can only imagine how confusing script meetings were as director Bob Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale tried their way through the maze they’d built. The film opens in 1985 just after McFly returns from his earlier adventure when once again Doc appears driving his tricked out De Lorean at breakneck speed because he needs McFly’s help saving him from going to jail for crimes he didn’t commit in 2015.

Hill Valley looks like something ripped off an old pulp magazine cover in 2015. Ramps leading into outer space have replaced last year’s town square while jet-powered cars zoom overhead like angry hornets over a hive filled with hoverboard-wielding children whose parents clearly don’t love them enough or understand physics well enough because those things would never fly right side up let alone upside down without some serious scientific modifications involving anti-gravity engines! This leads us into one of several amusing special effects sequences wherein our hero narrowly escapes some punks while riding around on said skateboard/hover scooter hybrid device thingamajigs whatever they call them nowadays anyway.

He succeeds mostly but makes one crucial error: buying himself a sports almanac containing every score between ’50-2000 AD inclusive before returning home whereupon Biff steals both items from him after traveling back through time themselves so younger self can place multiple winning bets turning into millionaire overnight except no wait scratch that billionaire instead!

And so McFly and Doc travel back to 1955 to try to steal the almanac away from Biff; if you’re keeping up with all this, you’re a very clever reader. I won’t even begin to go into the ways that the various parents and kids of the main characters get involved in this plot, or what happens when McFly almost goes to a high school dance on a double date with himself, or how Fox plays three roles including his own daughter.

What is entertaining about “Back to the Future Part II” is Christopher Lloyd as Doc breathlessly trying to figure out what is happening and patch everything together while he flies through time. The flaw in Doc’s reasoning, of course, is his assumption that he knows which is the correct timeline that should be restored. How does he know that the first movie’s “real world” wasn’t itself an alternate timeline? That’s a job for God.

For all its craziness, “Part II” lacks the genuine power of the original. The story of ’85 film has real heart: If McFly doesn’t travel from 1985 to 1955 and arrange for his parents’ first date, he might not even exist. And it was time travel in that film where he had his emotional confrontation with mom and dad as teenagers. In contrast, “Part II” mostly consists of just zaniness and screwball jokes but it’s fun on that level.

Watch Back to the Future Part II For Free On Gomovies.

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