Review of Back to the Future Part II (1989) by Vidyabum — 17 Apr 2014

BttF 2 is certainly made of the same stock as 1.

It's still got great acting, music, and pretty much all the strengths of the first one, which was strong all-round.

This one does suffer from two of its parts though.

One is that theBttF 2 is certainly made of the same stock as 1.

It's still got great acting, music, and pretty much all the strengths of the first one, which was strong all-round.

This one does suffer from two of its parts though.

One is that the true strength of BttF 1 was how everything was seamless and perfectly fitting, like a machine that never, ever made any mistakes. Every plot thread, scene, character, did all it had to do, none of them may have shined extremely bright but they all did a perfect job.

In this one, the plot threads don't really work as well. One of the most important elements of BttF2 is that you can't have 2 same people meet or else that'll create a time paradox. Here, when Biff from 1955 meets Biff from 2015...nothing happens. I know Young Biff doesn't recognise Old Biff, but still, the plot point falls apart, and it's one of the bigger plot points of the movie.

Other elements like how Doc Brown refuses to change the future, but gets Marty to change the future to save his kids, is a bit ridiculous. If he's ready to change the future that much, why not help Marty stop being an idiot and not get in the car accident he's supposed to get in? It's not much of a stretch and it'd certainly help much.

Most scenes do their job as well as in the first movie, but don't feel as tight. Why?...The first one had a pretty much flawless quality of always introducing plot devices, foreshadowing and emotional relationships statuses without any asperity to it. The leaflet that informs you that the clock tower will be struck at exactly 10:04? Perfectly introduced. The meeting between Marty's mum and him instead of his 1955 dad? Perfectly introduced.

Here, it's not so good. Things that happen don't make as much sense and/or are a bit too easy or not as well executed. It's not far worse, just slightly, but while the first one was constantly amazing with that, this one isn't.

The second thing that doesn't work too well in this movie is how drastically it travels through time. You go to the future, an alternate present, the past, all in one movie. It's fine in terms of logic and sense(mostly anyway) but emotionally, it's not. You don't have the time to build emotion for any of the characters in this movie, except for the ones you already know from the last movie.

Granted, that's pretty much 90% of them...But that's the issue. They bring almost nothing new to the table. There's certainly a lot of tension and emotion for Marty and Doc's predicaments, but not for their characters, or any new characters. The alternate 1985 Biff and Lorraine? You don't see them long. Old Biff? Don't see him long. Young Biff, you know him from the last movie.

Marty and Doc end up on the upper end of this since they have a lot of screen time and we already know them and learn more about them, but they're really the exception.

Apart from these inferiorities, BttF2 is definitely still a great watch. It's still fun, full of tension and action and comedy, and although quite more sad and tragic than the last one, it's just as good as a lighthearted story.