Back to the Future (1985) Review: Clockwork Comedy

Is Back to the Future worth watching?

Yes. Back to the Future is close to a perfect popular film, a time-travel comedy so tightly constructed that almost every line in its first half pays off in its second. Robert Zemeckis and co-writer Bob Gale turn a potentially creepy premise into something warm, funny and suspenseful, and Michael J. Fox gives one of the great comic-leading-man performances of the decade. The only reservations are a handful of 1980s jokes and caricatures that have not aged gracefully.

What is Back to the Future about?

Back to the Future introduces Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), a small-town teenager in 1985 with a garage band, a steady girlfriend, Jennifer (Claudia Wells), and a family that seems stuck in a rut. His closest adult friend is Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), an eccentric inventor who has turned a DeLorean sports car into a time machine.

A late-night demonstration goes badly wrong, and Marty is thrown back to 1955. There he accidentally interrupts the first meeting of his parents, the timid George (Crispin Glover) and the lovestruck Lorraine (Lea Thompson), and Lorraine’s attention turns to Marty instead. With the younger Doc’s help, he has to put his parents’ romance back on track and find a way home before his own existence unravels.

Zemeckis directs from the screenplay he wrote with Gale. It is an American production in English, and it runs 116 minutes.

A screenplay built like a watch

The film’s reputation rests on its structure, and it deserves it. The opening 1985 section is packed with throwaway details, from Doc’s rambling experiments to the town square and the family dinner table, and nearly all of them return in 1955 with new meaning. Watching it a second time is a lesson in how setup and payoff work; watching it the first time, you simply feel the story tightening.

Zemeckis also finds a sharp comic engine in the premise. Marty is a teenager who suddenly knows more about his parents than they know about themselves, and the fish-out-of-water gags about 1950s small-town life are funny because they are specific: prices, slang, fashion and music become running jokes that also build the world.

Fox and Lloyd make an unlikely double act

Michael J. Fox plays Marty with quick, twitchy energy and perfect timing, but he also grounds the film. Marty’s mounting panic as history starts to slip gives the comedy real stakes, and Fox makes the character’s decency obvious without making him bland.

Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown is the opposite: wild-eyed, operatic and wonderfully physical. Their friendship is the film’s emotional spine, and the pairing of a teenager and a middle-aged scientist never needs explaining. Crispin Glover’s George is an oddball masterpiece of awkwardness, Lea Thompson plays the teenage Lorraine with a comic confidence that keeps an uncomfortable situation light, and Thomas F. Wilson’s bully Biff is a villain audiences love to hate.

Alan Silvestri’s soaring score and the film’s use of rock and roll give the adventure a propulsive lift, and the sound work that shaped its big set pieces was recognised with an Academy Award.

What has dated

The film’s affection for 1955 is sincere but selective, and its view of the era skips past a great deal. A running thread involving Libyan terrorists is pure 1980s caricature, and a gag about the origins of rock and roll has drawn fair criticism for how it treats Black musicians. The central situation, a mother falling for her own son, is handled with more tact than it might have been, but some viewers will still find it squirm-inducing. None of this spoils the film, but it is worth knowing going in.

Who should watch Back to the Future?

Almost everyone. It is an ideal family film for children around ten and older, a perfect entry point for anyone new to science fiction comedy, and a reliable rewatch for adults. At under two hours, it moves fast. There is some mild language, a scene with gunfire and a moment of sexual menace aimed at a teenage character, all handled briefly.

If you love it, try these next:

• Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a goofier late-1980s time-travel comedy that shares its affection for teenage underdogs.
• The Empire Strikes Back, the other defining crowd-pleaser of the era, with a very different kind of plotting finesse.

The verdict

Back to the Future remains a model of adventure storytelling: fast, funny and built with a precision that makes each viewing more satisfying than the last. A few dated jokes and one uncomfortable premise are the only real blemishes on a film that still delivers for every generation.

Rating: 4.5/5