Back to the Future Part III

Oh, I know you did send me back to the future. But I'm back! I'm back from the future.

Doc Brown is back in 1885 in the Old West, soon to be joined by Marty who has found that Doc is in mortal danger from Burford "Mad-Dog" Tannen.

Rounding out what turned out to be a hugely popular trilogy, Back to the Future Part III restored the core essence heart of Part 1, whilst simultaneously tying up all the threads with a fully formed story. More sedate in its telling (not hard following on from the manic pacing of part 2) part 3 fuses science fiction malarkey with, well, Western malarkey. All played out with the usual array of clever jokes and series reprises - only in a Wild Wild West setting. An interesting point to note is how the roles of Doc & Marty have been reversed from the first film, here Marty is the maniacal plot axis, whizzing around getting into scrapes as Doc ambles around in love, courtesy of the delightfully classic looking Mary Steenburgen as Clara Clayton. Thomas F. Wilson returns for villain duties as Tannen, a Western bully villain pulled straight out of many a classic Oater from way back in the day, and Lea Thompson & Elisabeth Shue ensure the "past" is not forgotten.

When Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale started making Back To The Future in 1985, could they have envisaged that they would make three films and end up with a steam engine time machine in the Wild West? Possibly not, but as part 3 hurtles (literally) towards the suspense laden finale, two things are for certain. One is that they wisely closed the series down with a surefire coda winner. Two is that between them they crafted one of the most entertaining family trilogies to have ever graced the screen. No doubt about the fact that part one is the uniformly class act of the three, but parts two & three themselves reward groups of all ages. Great Scot indeed. 8.5/10

"Marty" (Michael J Fox) is stuck in 1955 when he learns of the untimely demise of his mentor "Doc. Brown" (Christopher Lloyd) back in 1885. Luckily, the DeLorean is on hand and back he goes - to the wild west - to try and prevent this calamity. Once there, he has no idea how to get back; a task not made any easier by local bully "Mad Dod" (Tom Wilson) who has it in for this meek city boy from day one. Spielberg is at his best with stories like this, and borrowing heavily from the Western film genre - and quite a bit from Clint Eastwood too, we have a quickly paced an amiable adventure film as Fox and Lloyd have to stay alive whilst figuring out how to charge the flux capacitor and get themselves home. Wilson is super as the "baddie" and Mary Steenbergen gives the "Doc" a little bit of love interest as the story ticks along nicely. These three films fit nicely with each other, and happily they all decided to hang up their stetsons after this one. It's still great fun 30 years later, with fun pithy dialogue; loads of great action photography and strong entertaining performances all through. Good fun.

"Back to the Future III" is based upon the almost impossible to dispute fact that the whole concept of time travel has always been a potent one with its endless opportunities for happiness, heartache and catastrophe and on these terms this film is hard to beat. It draws upon a generous selection of assorted elements - there are some funny references to Clint Eastwood's The Man with No Name character from the spaghetti westerns plus Doc Brown being mocked by the locals when attempting to explain some of the more popular past time activities in the 20th century - and it makes extremely good use of them and this all adds up to an incredibly thrilling (the superbly directed and edited execution of Doc Brown's eccentric plan designed to return them all back to the future comes readily to mind here) and well paced film the whole family can enjoy.