Review of Back to the Future (1985) by Swati — 05 Feb 2014

A teenager, Marty, finds himself in an accidental time travel into the past where he meets his parents who are young again. He has to create a romance between them so he could be born in the future. Dr. Brown, who invented the time machine in the future, is also his ally in the past, and together they must find a way to send him back to the future.

The story takes place in the same town. The world is a different place in the 1950s from the 80s. The dressing, speech, tastes in music, all of it. Marty, as he says himself, has a life in the future he wants to return to. The plot was intricate and the dialogue sharp and witty. The eccentric Doctor can't go a second without putting a smile on your face.

Marty's arrival in the past confuses a family living on a farm who take him for an alien. He flees from there and marches into the town still in his clothes from the future. At several instances, it is suggested that some of the popular culture was defined by Marty, such as skateboards and rock n roll.

Marty's father, George, is bullied by the same man, Biff, who is also bullying him in the future. Marty starts working on helping his father stand up for himself. He regularly comes into conflict with Biff.

George is afraid of any kind of social contact and Marty has his work cut out for him to convince him to ask his mother out so they could kiss and start a relationship. Much of the humour lies in Marty's struggles to spark fire between his parents which was messed up by his intervention.

His mother, who should have fallen in love with his father, instead becomes infatuated with him. His horror at this development is funny because you know this is a comedy film and everything will work out in the end.

'Back to the Future' is possibly one of the most entertaining movies about time travel, probably because it didn't delve into hard science and combined elements of both science fiction and comedy.