Nobody Calls Me Chicken... (Back To The Future - Part 2 (DVD))

Member Name: andrewl

Product:	Back To The Future - Part 2 (DVD)
Date:	08/08/09 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not so much a sequel, more an expansion pack

Disadvantages: The 'nobody calls me chicken' thing. Ugh.

It's clear that Back to the Future was not made with its two sequels fully-formed in Zemeckis and Spielbergs' heads. The start of Back to the Future 2 reprises the end of the first film, except Doc Brown now hesitates a lot longer before saying that Marty and Jennifer will turn out fine. This is clearly the point at which a great one-off film becomes a trilogy. From here, characters and plot twists are introduced which will lead seamlessly into the series finale, while incorporating large chunks of the original film.

The stakes are raised in this second episode. From the original romantic comedy with a science-fiction spin, we now launch into a full-blown time travel epic. Timelines are tangled and paradoxes run loose as Marty struggles to save his family and his whole town from a hellish fate, while trying not to destroy the universe in the process. Marty's theme becomes the film's score, the music full-blown Indiana Jones-esque orchestrated grandeur.

The action sequences are also a lot more dangerous, the sense of fun that the original gloried in has faded. Biff has changed from a bully to a psychotic madman, capable of anything.

The lovable Doc Brown has undergone a complete overhaul. He is starting to live by his preaching about not changing history, scolding Marty for buying a Sports Almanac with sports results until the year 2000. Despite the fact that in the original film, he said that he intended to do just that. It's a logical development of the character and works well.

What doesn't work is the way in which Marty is suddenly incapable of being accused of being a coward. Where did this come from? It's exactly the sort of trite, hackneyed 'character-by-numbers' rubbish that the original film strove so hard to avoid. Yuk, yuk, triple yuk. My major gripe with the film.

Of course, a criticism of most sequels is that they tend to merely repackage the best moments from their predecessors in a greatest hits compilation of diminishing returns. Back to the Future 2 not only does this, but does so gleefully, with its tongue firmly in its cheek (naturally). Only the trappings change as Marty evades pursuers on a skateboard, again. As he makes a fool of himself in a cafe, again. As he checks newspaper articles and photos, again. But this is a fantastic approach to take. History goes in cycles, or so the theory goes, and here we see this in action.

Oh, and a young Billy Zane appears in it. See if you can spot him.

The same fantastic special effects zip the film along, with added split screen genius. By having much of the film run alongside events from the original, the audience gets a clear sense of a production team glorying in their own cleverness. Luckily, Spielberg and Zemeckis are just as smart as they think they are. And, just as in the original, a seemingly sewn-up plot bursts into a terrific shock ending that throws open all the options once again.

Special praise must also go to the California of the future in the film's early scenes. Although we're now getting close enough to 2015 to see that the film's predictions are a little off-target, the way in which the future Hill Valley has been created as a mix of architectural styles both contemporary and futuristic avoids the cookie-cutter gleaming sci-fi megacity look that would have dated the film very quickly. It still holds up very well, just... ignore the date.

Overall, this isn't as good as Back to the Future, but then Back to the Future is pretty much a defining moment for an entire generation. It does have the same high-quality acting, effects and music, and more fantastically composed tracking shots (particularly of the airborne Delorean). It's probably the weakest link of the three films (the parallel universe bit is just a little too overblown to take at all seriously), but it's still magnificent.

Summary: The weakest link of this trilogy still rocks your Dad's big pants.