{"id":9898,"date":"2010-10-24T21:33:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T05:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9898"},"modified":"2010-10-24T21:34:05","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T05:34:05","slug":"back-to-the-futyre-robert-zemeckis-1985-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9898","title":{"rendered":"Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Twenty-five years can age a film.\u00a0 Science fiction films are particularly vulnerable, with special effects that seemed to defy reality when they first hit the screen quickly turning comical, but for all the wrong reasons.\u00a0 The only thing more at risk than sci-fi is sci-fi that deals with the future.\u00a0 From bacofoil suits and weird haircuts to flying cars and jetpacks, the future always looks hokey by the time we catch up with the filmmaker\u2019s vision.\u00a0 Thankfully, one film from the 80s defies the odds.\u00a0 Working with writer Bob Gale, Robert Zemeckis produced a timeless classic when he gave us Back to the Future<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zemeckis avoids the clich\u00e9d costumes and future-tech by sending young Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) back in time to 1955 in a nuclear powered DeLorean.\u00a0 Once there, all he has to do is ensure that his parents fall in love, save the life of his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) 30 years in the future, and harness the power of a single bolt of lightning to return him to his own time.\u00a0 Piece of cake.<\/p>\n

For a film about science, it\u2019s appropriate that one of the things that really makes it work is chemistry.\u00a0 Fox and Lloyd create a straight man\/funny man pairing feels unbelievably natural.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a substitute father\/son relationship, though poor Marty certainly starts the film in need of one, nor that of a mad scientist and his eager lab assistant.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost like a perfect a marriage – they are similar enough for their friendship to seem obvious, different enough that it\u2019s mutually beneficial.\u00a0 And where Fox brings his boyish charm (that it never becomes cloying is one of the things that makes him special), Lloyd dishes out the bug-eyed insanity.\u00a0 Yet neither steals the show from the other.\u00a0 There\u2019s a scene where the 1950s version of Marty\u2019s mom (Lea Thompson) calls at Doc\u2019s house to seduce her horrified son into taking her to a school dance.\u00a0 While the Electra flirtation plays out, Lloyd stalks the set, pantomiming his way through confusion, shock and reproach.\u00a0 Yet he never pulls attention from the scene. He\u2019s the icing on a deliciously awkward cake.<\/p>\n

One of the other aspects that makes this film such a pleasure is that the more you invest, the more it rewards you.\u00a0 At heart, it\u2019s a fairly simple, high concept film.\u00a0 But in its execution it provides layers of visual complexity and jokes, many of which only become apparent if you watch really, really carefully.\u00a0 Take the Twin Pines shopping mall, the location of a scene early in the film.\u00a0 When he goes back in time, we see Marty run over one of a pair of spruce saplings, and returning to the mall at the end of the film, it\u2019s name has changed to \u2018Lone Pine\u2019.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s the \u2018Rube Goldberg\u2019 machines in Doc\u2019s house, Marty\u2019s compilation of great guitarist\u2019s mannerisms when he performs on stage for you to spot, and all the carefully placed lines that, while apparently throw-away when delivered, become key as the film progresses. It makes such a refreshing change from the \u2018beat the audience over the head with it\u2019 approach that many recent comedies have taken.<\/p>\n

Having said all that, watching Back to the Future is an experience for me that is always tinged with just a little sadness.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the film\u2019s fault, but I can\u2019t help but wonder what Fox might have gone on to make had he not been afflicted by Parkinson\u2019s disease.\u00a0 To feel regret that we\u2019ve been robbed of years of his \u00a0performances seems churlish when one considers what the man himself has suffered, but I\u2019d be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t saddened that we\u2019ve been denied his screen presence.\u00a0 The man himself though seems to be a paragon of positive thought, and perhaps that makes this film a fitting testament to him. Back to the Future is not about the power of science (though hopefully Fox\u2019s advocacy for research into a cure for Parkinson\u2019s will pay dividends) or even, as Huey Lewis sings on the soundtrack, the power of love.\u00a0 It\u2019s about what you can do with a positive attitude.\u00a0 Perhaps that is what makes Back to the Future ageless.\u00a0 Even without a time machine, I\u2019m willing to bet we\u2019ll still be watching it in another twenty five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed on DVD. Twenty-five years can age a film.\u00a0 Science fiction films are particularly vulnerable, with special effects that seemed to defy reality when they first hit the screen quickly turning comical, but for all the wrong reasons.\u00a0 The only thing more at risk than sci-fi is sci-fi that deals with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}