Large Popcorn Review

MPAA Rating: PG

Family Friendly?: Yes

“Wait a minute, Doc. Ah… Are you telling me that you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?”  -Marty McFly

I remember when I was in 5th grade, and I went to a birthday party for one of my friends back then. We were wanting to watch a movie, and my friend suggested: “Back to the Future”. Hearing that it was an old movie, my younger self didn’t want to watch an -old and boring- movie. As soon as it started, oh boy, was I ever wrong about this film. Since then, I have been a huge fan of the Back to the Future trilogy, and I cannot believe that I haven’t written a review on it yet. Well, let’s start the Flux Capacitor, and “when this baby hits 88mph, you’re going to see some serious shit.”

 

PLOT:

 

Back to the Future is about a teenager named Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) who is an assistant to the town’s wakko of a scientist, Dr. Emmet Brown (Christopher Llyod). Marty helps out Doc with all of his science experiments, and now Doc has a time machine made out of a Delorean car. After Doc is killed by terrorists from using their plutonium to make the time machine, Marty attempts to escape the terrorists… only to accidentally go back to the year 1955 from his 1985 time. Stuck in the past, Marty accidentally makes his teenage mother fall in love with him, and could potentially write himself out of existence. With the help of a younger Doc, can Marty get back to his time? Can he get his parents to fall in love? Or will Marty run “outta-time” and be erased from existence?

 

WHAT DOES IT DO?:

 

As a kid, this film piqued my interest in the science fiction genre of movies as a whole. With concepts of time travel, the space-time continuum, and the butterfly effect all at once in a comedy movie, Back to the Future was amazing to me back then, and it still is. Just remembering all of the classic scenes, the characters, and even all 3 movies as a whole make me want to watch them constantly. I will go into more detail about Part 2 and Part 3 in other reviews, but for now, let’s dive into Part 1.

 

Part 1 did an amazing job at introducing audiences to the world of Marty Mcfly. One interesting aspect of the movie are the sets they use to film, specifically the town square. When audiences are first introduced to it, the town has a 1980s feel to it with Marty listening to a Sony Walkman, women wearing leg warmers, etc. When Marty goes back to 1955, the town drastically changes to people wearing nicer looking clothes, neighborhoods that weren’t built yet, and there’s a genuine feeling that he really went back in time. This feeling continues in the later installments more drastically, but to actually see a real difference in a matter of 30 years, that was definitely a sight to see.

 

Michael J. Fox did a fantastic job at portraying Marty McFly in this movie. Although the film was originally shot with Eric Stoltz as Marty, director Bob Gale and writer Robert Zemeckis both believed that Fox would have been a better Marty. Even after filming most of the movie with Stoltz, they eventually worked with Fox to film around the popular sitcom, Family Ties (1982-1989), a show in which he was the main character. Fox not only brings his lovable self from his character from Family Ties but he also was able to make people believe that he was literally in the wrong time period by making references to things that haven’t happened yet, and even how he uses his skills to get himself out of situations. For example, when Marty was first running away from Biff and his gang, he grabbed a kids scooter, and made it into a makeshift skateboard to get away, and eventually, embarrass Biff. Moments like these are throughout the film where the audience can’t help but root for Marty as he gets himself into and out of situations. One thing to mention on Fox’s acting ability was that he filmed Family Ties in the daytime, and filmed all of his scenes for the first Back to The Future at night after he finished filming for the television series. With a committed actor like that, Marty McFly quickly became a household name in the 1980s.

 

CONCLUSION:

Overall, Back to The Future is one of my favorite movie franchises of all time. This film not only made me interested in the science fiction genre, but it also brought about an interest to try to watch movies that were made before I was born, which was something I didn’t really do as a young kid. After I watched this at my friend’s house, and his dad told me that there were two sequels made for this movie, I instantly went to look up the other two movies and watched them back to back over the weekend. Whenever I feel like watching a good movie, I pop in Back to The Future in my Blu-Ray Player, and I begin to smile as I watch the adventures of the courageous Marty McFly and Doc Brown.

RATING:

4.5/5 POPCORN KERNELS