Back to the Future II

If you think of the best trilogies in film history, Back to the Future always comes to mind. With the charm of leads Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, every film of Back to the Future worked with so many genres and appealed to every age group. Even the third Back to the Future from 1990 is a hidden gem. That said, the strangest movie of the trilogy will always be the second one from 1989.  

Now going forward to the future on the date October 21, 2015, Marty McFly (Fox) and Dr. Emmett Brown (Lloyd) must deal with events of McFly's future son and a sports almanac. The plot also takes us back to an alternative crime-filled year of 1985 and the year 1955 that we dealt with in the first one.      

Right from the opening act, the film becomes very odd. The year 2015 is filled with so many gadgets and ideas. We have flying cars, hoverboards, bizarre outfits, and the Cubs win the World Series. Even if at times 2015 looks like dated 80's products and I wish all of this wasn't only in the opening act. There are some very imaginative ideas here that are very original and hold up twenty-five years after being released. Once you enter the alternative 1985, the film seems to wants to lecture about the ideas of poverty and crime in a way we should all like. As they always able to do with any movie they are in, Fox and Lloyd are able to work with whatever plot requires and they are so likable. Even the secondary of cast of Jennifer Shue, Lea Thompson, and James Tolkan are a hit.                                                                  

Once you get past the future of 2015 and the 1985 ideas, this sequel badly wants to go back to the success of the first movie and getting back to 1955 again. It is creative in the way that it ties to back to the new plot but these are not new elements and the charm just doesn't come back through.  A good chase scene and highly interesting ending are able to save it's last act though.


The plot is mismatched and very uneven because of all the time travel. Still, Back to the Future II  has it's highlights and definitely should not be overlooked. This movie will never be on the same par with the first and third movies of this trilogy though.

3.5/5

Star Trek III: The Seach for Spock

When it's all said and done, the original Star Trek films were really something special. A quality series with great story lines that went in all different directions. Along with Undiscovered Country and Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock is quite different and another great film in the series.

Following in the foot steps of the last film, The Wrath of Khan, the plot here has Spock (Leonard Nimoy) dead and gone. The whole crew is in disarray with Kirk (William Shatner) hurt the most. Somehow though light comes through with Spock possibly still alive and somehow connected in spirit to Bones (Deforest Kelley) and on the mysterious and dangerous planet of Genesis.


This was probably one of hardest films to put together in this series because of the many levels of plot here. The Genesis planet might not be the most original idea on the block but there is still a lot of creativity here with settings that are new for a Star Trek film and giving the cast a lot to do. The film does bring the classic old cast back including characters of David Marcus ( Merritt Butrick) and Saavick (Robin Curtis). A villain in Christopher Lloyd with the name of Commander Kruge who is hard to figure and very strange but still hard not to like. Lloyd as usual delivers a quirky performance. The plot is great and frankly I don't think this could have come out any better.

With the title, you might think that we don't see Spock but it's one of things where it is "Don't judge a book by it's cover". There is a younger resurrected Spock idea that turns into more then you might think and also some small flashbacks. The ending is something that we know is coming but does fit into Start Trek history quite nicely. In the end, we find the Spock character even though it might not be clearly obvious where he was.

The film can be a little slow and sad and depressing. This is kind of a change of pace for the Star Trek series and for me this makes it seems more special because of it.

This film is directed by Leonard Nimoy who did good job here. I think The Search for Spock is really the perfect film to start the middle of the series with.

4/5