Back To The Future Part III (1990, rewatch): A fantastic comeback

Back To The Future Part III, 1990, directed by Robert Zemeckis, Universal Studios 4K blu-ray (Back To The Future: The Ultimate Trilogy box set, 2020), 3.5 stars.

Two out of three, in the end, ain't bad, I suppose.

As disappointed as I was with Part II, I really was pleasantly surprised with Part III. I was dreading watching this but decided to soldier on and be done with it. And I wound have having a blast with it.

We got a little too much fat in the first and last 10 minutes of Part III -- mostly having to do with revisiting and doing some cleanup with Part II. But with the 100 minutes or so in the middle, Part III was a fantastic homage to the great Western movies of the past -- with some big nods to Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of the 1960s. Marty McFly adopts the Clint Eastwood alias, dons The Man With No Name's trademark hat and poncho. And the showdown in the street between Marty and Buford Tannen was straight out of A Fistful Of Dollars, as telegraphed on a TV screen we glimpsed in Part II.

That and the fantastic action set piece at the climax put this film over the top for me. I pretty much forgave the transgression that was Part II by the time Part III was over, even if the coda that wrapped up this series was a bit cheesy for my taste.

I think what makes Part III -- and the first film -- so successful is a solid focus on a central human story. Where Part II bounced all over the place with a cardboard character, Biff Tannen, as its malevolent centerpiece, Part III was all about the joyful Doc Brown wrestling with his demons and ultimately finding his happy place. And the clever anachronistic comedy of the first movie was back in Part III.

Everything worked for me in the first movie. Nothing did in Part II. Most everything did again in Part III.

So, in the end, I would call the Back To The Future trilogy a pretty good one. If the middle one didn't happen, it would have been an all-time classic one-two punch.  

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