Back to the Future Part III

Now the time has come to talk about the third installment in this epic trilogy, “Back to the Future Part III,” released in 1990. Hal Hinson started his review out by saying, “"Back to the Future Part III," the third and final installment in the time-travel adventures of Marty McFly, is a winge`d thing, full of ingenious pop dazzle and jazzy high spirits.” From its opening scenes, the film is like a refreshing elixir, a movie pick-me-up that gives thrills and races your adrenaline but keeps your head in place as well. It’s beautifully lighthearted, nearly perfect fun.

The story line – which director Robert Zemeckis worked with his partner, Bob Gale – is strikingly knotted, and the director sets it all up as if he is on fire. Even before the credits start, our heads are spinning. The situation at the beginning is this: It’s 1955 and, as the clock reaches the critical moment, Doc puts Marty into his DeLorean and sends him back to the future. “But” before the gas is extinguished, Marty runs up claiming that he’s back from the future, this time with a telegram from the other Doc – the one stranded in 1885 at the end of the second movie – detailing where the damaged DeLorean can be found and how it can be repaired.

As far as Doc is concerned, the machine is to be used once more, to take Marty back to 1985. In fact, he goes to great strengths to insist that no one come to rescue him in 1885, where he is living a happy life as a blacksmith. However, when a tombstone is found showing that unless something is done, Doc will be shot in the back in less than a week, Marty is left with no choice but to start the DeLorean and once again head back into the past to rescue him.

Hinson is right when he says, “No one is expected to swallow these mazelike twists and double-back detours all in one gulp. The more you hang on to the pieces of the puzzle, though, the more pleasurable it is. When Marty crosses the plane of the fourth dimension and moves into the past, the picture becomes a kind of surrealistic western.” Hill Valley in 1885 is a vague Wild West colony with a saloon (which is in the same spot as the soda shop and its later living form) and a sheriff (James Tolkan) and a town bad guy who turns out to be “Mad Dog” Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), the ancient ancestor of the obnoxious Biff from the first two movies.

The filmmakers work entertaining variants on the clichés of the western genre. Some of the bits come wonderfully out of nowhere. Hinson said, “The best riffs, though, are at the expense of Clint Eastwood, whose name Marty takes to disguise his true identity from the members of his own McFly clan.” (There’s a hilarious scene where Marty gets to hold a tiny infant who is, in fact, his own great-grandfather.) Hinson goes on to say, “This brand of droll, kinetic humor is a Zemeckis and Gale trademark.” The jokes in this movie are a new high for pop originality. The jokes here are complexly constructed and perfectly-timed, like the Rube Goldberg gadget Doc makes to create a single ice cube (more exact than gold in the dusty Old West). The filmmakers are movie intelligent as well, and because they’re constantly playing around with time – and with our knowledge of what happened in the previous two movies – their one-liners almost always work on more than one level.

Effortlessly well-organized, the movie almost never lightens up. Because Marty has damaged the gas line on the DeLorean, spilling out all the gas and making it impossible for them to time-travel, Doc is forced to create a smart plan using a locomotive to push the car up to 85 MPH. Hinson is right when he says, “The film builds up a head of steam too, and the momentum is dizzying. The conclusion is basic in design, as classic as a silent movie heroine inching toward a buzz saw, but it's a masterfully executed bit of pure cinema.”

However, headlong diving for its own sake isn’t the filmmakers’ only concern. The picture isn’t nerve-wracking and distracted the way the last two were. It doesn’t plunge forward mindlessly. It once in a while pauses to let the characters to interact. There’s even a part, it looks like, for an emotional moment or two, for sweetness and romance.

As a result, this is the most human, the most character-based of the “Back to the Future” trilogy. Unlike before where Marty was the focus on the first movie and Biff for the second, the focus here is more on Doc. Hinson is right when he said, “As an actor, Lloyd is an extravagant eccentric, an American version of Ralph Richardson, but with just the slightest touch of acid damage. Spiritually, Lloyd is as close as a living person can come to being a cartoon, and in the past I've felt pushed back against a wall by his aggressively animated style. But here his playing seems more modulated, less strained; this time, he's left room on screen for the other actors.” Funny that Hinson should mention that since there was a "Back to the Future" cartoon series that I never saw but only heard of from Cinemassacre's review, especially since I wasn't around during the time the cartoon aired on TV.

It would have been unbelievable before for Doc to have fallen in love. It wasn’t inside the character’s range, or the movies’, really. Since he falls in love – and not only that, cuts an almost striking romantic figure – it’s a suggestion of how much the filmmakers have opened up their idea. His love interest here is Clara, played by Mary Steenburgen, who Hinson described as “a doelike schoolmarm, newly arrived in town.” Right from the start, it is love at first sight. The romance isn’t given much screen time, but the conversations they have about their love for Jules Verne gives the film a science fiction background the other ones didn’t, plus a promising innocence.

It’s nice to see Steenburgen get this kind of comedy showcase. Hinson said, “Her presence has a leavening effect; she gives the movie a touch of twitterpated elegance.” For the rest of the returning actors, everybody is better this time, including Fox. Hinson speculated, “By now, Fox must be entirely bored with the series' commonplace hero; there's not much in the writing for an actor to latch on to. But there's something about Fox's averageness that takes hold in this installment.” He’s such a simple kid, so normal and like every other city boy, that his lack of physique – especially when he fixes his Eastwood poncho and hat, and heads for his face-off on the main street – is itself heroic.

When Verne is suggested, you immediately nod. “Back to the Future III” has the openness of a classic fantasy. Hinson mentioned that, “It's a big, sprawling adventure, full of wonderments and rich surprises.” Not only is this bad transformed, it’s bad redeemed.

This movie is not as bad as everyone says it is, like “Ghostbusters 2” or “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” I understand that the movie could be the “black sheep” of the trilogy since it doesn’t have the same kind of connection the first two have, but it’s still nice, especially since the same jokes fall in, even though they may look like they are getting old. My only complaint is that I’m not very fond of Clara, but that’s not something to go crazy over. Still, I say watch this movie and give it a chance because you should just watch it and like it. I guess it has been liked more now than before, especially since it’s higher than the second one on Rotten Tomatoes. The best part about this movie is when Marty and Doc switch their famous catchphrases, which everyone will find hilarious.

Well, I hope everyone liked my review on the “Back to the Future” trilogy as I have making them. This is one of those trilogies that have stood the test of time and I love it to this very day. Stay tuned next week to see what I will end the month of August off with.