Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's 1989 follow-up takes the time travel mechanics established in the original and pushes them to their logical extreme, creating a narrative of such intricate construction that it makes the first film's celebrated screenplay look relatively straightforward. It sacrifices the original's emotional warmth and narrative clarity for a complexity and an inventiveness that rewards close attention with considerable dividends, and it is a picture of real intellectual excitement and striking visual imagination.
At a Glance
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Runtime: 108 minutes
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, Elisabeth Shue
Release: 1989
Critics Rating: ★★★½ (3.5/5 stars, ambitious and rewarding)
Audience Rating: ★★★★ (4/5 stars, a fan favourite)
Review Breakdown
Plot
Doc Brown arrives from the future to take Marty and Jennifer to 2015 to prevent their son from making a catastrophic mistake. While in the future, Biff Tannen steals the DeLorean and travels back to 1955 to give his younger self a sports almanac, creating an alternate 1985 in which Biff is a corrupt billionaire and Hill Valley has become a dystopia. Marty and Doc must travel back to 1955 to retrieve the almanac without interfering with the events of the first film. The plot operates across three time periods and requires the audience to track multiple versions of the same characters and locations with a precision that Zemeckis handles with remarkable clarity. The alternate 1985 sequences are the most striking passages, a vision of what Hill Valley could have become that gives the time travel mechanics real weight and a sharp satirical edge. The decision to end on a cliffhanger is the most audacious structural choice, a conclusion that is frustrating and entirely appropriate in equal measure for a picture that has been pushing its premise to its limits throughout.
Characters
Marty and Doc's relationship is given less room to develop here than in the original, a consequence of the more complex narrative demands, but the warmth and mutual respect that Fox and Lloyd established in the first film carries through with enough force to give the more spectacular elements their emotional grounding. Thomas F. Wilson's Biff Tannen is given the trilogy's most interesting development: the alternate 1985 version is a menacing creation that demonstrates what the bully of the original could have become given sufficient power and time. The future sequences, set in a 2015 that is now itself historical, are the most enjoyable passages, a vision of the future that is at once prescient and entirely of its 1989 moment. Fox and Lloyd are as assured as ever, and their chemistry carries the picture through its more intricate narrative passages with a warmth and a wit that makes the structural complexity feel accessible rather than overwhelming. Wilson is the standout in the darker sequences, and his alternate 1985 Biff is a frightening creation that delivers the most forceful villain performance in the trilogy.
Tone
Zemeckis pitches the future sequences at a higher energy and a more overtly comic register than the original, before shifting to a darker and more serious register in the alternate 1985 passages. The tonal range is wider than the original's, and Zemeckis navigates it with a confidence and a fluency that makes the transitions feel natural. The picture is at its most exuberant in the future sequences, where visual imagination and comic invention are in full flight, and at its sharpest in the alternate 1985 passages.
Meaning / Themes
The central concern is the way in which small changes can produce catastrophic consequences. The alternate 1985 sequences give this concern its most direct and affecting expression, a demonstration of how thoroughly a single act of temporal interference can transform a community and the people within it. Biff's almanac functions as a symbol of the corrupting power of foreknowledge, giving the time travel mechanics a thematic purpose that extends the original's interest in how character shapes circumstance.
Direction
Zemeckis's direction is the trilogy's most technically accomplished, with a visual imagination and a command of the complex structure that makes the narrative's considerable intricacy feel manageable. The future sequences are directed with an energy and an inventiveness that makes 2015 Hill Valley one of the most fully realised future environments in science fiction cinema. The sequences in which Marty must navigate the events of the first film without being seen are the directorial highlight, a piece of structural filmmaking of precise and sustained ingenuity. Alan Silvestri's score is as propulsive and as emotionally precise as in the original.
Cultural Reception
Back to the Future Part II received mixed reviews on its release but was a major commercial success, grossing over $332 million worldwide. Critics noted the structural ambition and the visual imagination of the future sequences while finding the picture less emotionally satisfying than its predecessor. It is now regarded as the trilogy's most intellectually rewarding entry and the one that most fully exploits the time travel premise's narrative possibilities. Its vision of 2015, now itself historical, is consistently cited as one of popular cinema's most entertaining pieces of future speculation.
Final Verdict: The trilogy's most ambitious and most structurally complex entry, a picture that repays close attention with rich dividends. The alternate 1985 sequences are its most effective passages, Wilson's Biff is the trilogy's most forceful villain performance, and Zemeckis's direction is its most technically accomplished. Part II is not as emotionally satisfying as the original, and it was never intended to be. What it is, is a picture of genuine intellectual excitement and bold visual invention that pushes its premise to its limits with a rigour and a wit that distinguishes it from every other time travel film of its era.