| Back to the Future (1985) | |
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Rating: 8.5/10 (1,305,262 votes) Director: Robert Zemeckis Writer: Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson Runtime: 116 min Rated: PG Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi Released: 03 Jul 1985 |
| Plot: Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown. | |
In 1985, a film came along that not only made an international star of Michael J Fox, but also managed to make a failed car-line the most desirable object to a legion of teenagers. Back To The Future told the tale of Marty McFly, a typical teenager who lives in Hill Valley, California. His father George is meek and timid, the object of bullying from Biff Tannen, his supervisor. His mother, Lorraine, is a depressed alcoholic, and his siblings are professional and social failures.
However, Marty’s friend, Doc Brown (the ever excellent Christopher Lloyd) has just invented something that will change the world – a time machine! But when the source of his power supply for the device puts the pair in peril, Marty flees and accidentally hops back in time to 1955 – where he unfortunately prevents his mother and father from meeting. If he doesn’t fix the timeline before the high school dance, Marty will cease to exist!
This is a film that works so well thanks to the energy of the cast, especially Fox who is amazingly energetic for an actor who, during filming, was also still shooting Family Ties for TV, and barely sleeping as a result. An instant charm to his character, it is impossible for audiences to not warm to Marty’s plight. With excellent support from all around, the magnificent Lloyd as eccentric as ever, Lea Thompson playing young and old, Crispin Glover nervy and nerdy perfection, and Thomas F Wilson as everyone’s favourite bully, Biff Tannen, the cast really make the whole thing work.
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The time-travel element is handled well, never bogging down with exposition, just a simple acceptance that it works, and the tale lets the character drama take center stage as Marty desperately tries to get George and Lorraine together – even though Lorraine has become somewhat obsessed with Marty himself. Even that aspect, which could be creepy if played wrong, doesn’t feel out of place.
But the real star of the film is the time machine itself, a Delorian. The notoriously unreliable cars had a short life until the company filed for bankruptcy in 1982, but the choice of the chunk of junk for the vehicle was inspired – the gullwing doors, and metallic chassis looking futuristic enough that the additions of pipes and wires probably weren’t really needed. As mentioned at the start of the review, the effect was that the car suddenly became desirable to audiences of teens growing up, and indeed there is still a market for collectors who snap up old cars and modify them to look like Doc’s machine.
Now, even just thinking about the film, my head is suddenly filled with the fanfare music of the core theme by Alan Silvestri – one of those theme tunes that sits so well with the events of the film that it is impossible to separate the sound from the images, much like Indiana Jones, of Star Wars. Throw in a pop tune by Huey Lewis and the News (who also gets a cameo early on) and the film is sci-fi comedy magic!
