Review of Back to the Future

Review of Back to the Future

If you know one thing about me, you know that I get the hiccups every time I drive passed a cemetery. If you know two things, you know that I appreciate the Back to the Future series in the same way that the Hamburgler appreciates Hamburgers.

The trilogy came out on DVD back on December 17, 2002. Between Joe, Mike, Kevin and I, there were 15 copies of it given out for Christmas that year. Once the first two were opened, it was tough to disguise the surprise when someone was handed a wrapped box with a very familiar shape and weight. It was the best Christmas ever.

Almost ten years later, I finally opened the box. It seems that I have this hang up watching movies that I own unless they come on TV. Why the hell is that? I own the DVD, but I’ll only watch it when it comes on TV. In poor quality. With commercial breaks. I call it the Forrest Gump phenomenon.

Anyway, I watched the first movie. It was actually research for an assignment for class. So yes, I’m getting yet another useless degree with my time. But I thought it was now a good time to give a formal (as formal as I get) review for one of my 5 favorite movies of all time.

Here’s why I love this movie. It gets you with two stories that blend so seamlessly together that you don’t realize it. Marty McFly is both trying to get back to 1985 and trying to get his parents back together. The movie uses a variation of the Grandfather Paradox which may erase Marty from existence and oh – by the way – destroy the space-time continuum in the process if he doesn’t get his parents back together. If he completes that task, he must then find a way back to the future by harnessing the energy from a bolt of lightning. Failing this will not directly ruin the Universe, but it would still suck really bad because he has a date with a girl. The scheduled lightning strike (cleverly written into the story) gives Marty a deadline to get his parents back together. And it just so happens, the Fish Under the Sea Dance is on the same night as the storm. Perfect for the rising action at the end of the second act. Do these storylines make sense in the world of physics? The movie is about time travel. So no. But they make perfect sense within the world the movie creates. Which is what really matters.

Save for a silly line about the future earth’s gravitational pull and a bad special effect involving a disappearing hand, this movie was perfect. And then some. 10.5 bugs (out of 10)