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robbwitmer.info · @robbwitmer.info@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Back to the Future Part II 6/10

It's time as a culture that we all admit to ourselves that this movie is a flaming mess.  Yes, it's filled with a lot of awesome stuff. Self-tying shoes, self-sizing jackets, hydrating pizza, TV-powered restaurants; and of course the star of the show, hoverboards. "A flying skateboard" might seem like the lamest elevator pitch in movie history, but <b><i>BTTF2</i></b> seems to exist only to get us from one hoverboard scene to the next, and on that level it's absolutely spectacular.  The rest is just filler, and is treated as such. There's no story, no character arcs, no point to the whole plot except to get to the end.  The movie never even tries to figure out what to do with Jennifer, so instead she's literally knocked unconscious and thrown under some boxes. (Does <i>awake-asleep-awake-asleep-awake</i> count as a character arc?)  I can't help but think that maybe this is all the flying car's fault. While we're being distracted by the toys, the first 40 minutes are spent cleaning up the mess they made for themselves at the end of <b><i>Part I</i></b>. It's a pretty bitchin' way to end a movie, to be honest, with our two heroes blasting off into the future in a flying DeLorean, but they packed a much heavier load into that car than they bargained for.  It's one thing, as storytellers, to put Jennifer in that car, and then to set up that she and Marty are married; and ALSO that they have kids, which are in some sort of danger or something — but to saddle yourself with all of that, and to not have any sort of plan to get out of it, that's madness.  And, by the way, what's the rush to get to the future anyway? It's a TIME MACHINE. Couldn't this be handled in the morning.  So we get what we get, with the Flying Time Car blasting off with a trunkful of problems to 2015, with Jennifer destined to a future of alley naps.

#movie

Published 2020-05-27 00:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere