Back to the Future, Part III
The third movie of a trilogy never gets any respect. At best your movie is a mildly satisfying (if slightly silly) conclusion to the story arc (Return of the Jedi or Army of Darkness); at worst, your movie is The Godfather III. And that’s if your third movie even gets a theatrical release. This Wikipedia page is littered with direct-to-video sequels, some arriving years after their original movies. (Bad News Bears Go to Japan, anyone?)
Admittedly, Back to the Future, Part III goes nowhere near the low bar set by The Godfather III, Beverly Hills Cop III, or The Never-ending Story III. Filmed back to back with Back to the Future Part II, BttFIII keeps most of the original cast together (which some notable exceptions, which I touched on in my review of part II). But while it never hits the lows set by other third movies, neither does it excel on its premise. Gone is the manic nature of the first movie; absent is the interconnected madcap plot of BttFII. What’s left is mildly satisfying…and slightly silly.
The Good
Let’s start with the best part of this movie: Thomas F. Wilson. On his infamous FAQ card, Wilson lists BtFIII as his favorite of the three because he got to learn things like horseback riding. I’d like to think the third movie also gives him the chance to show off his acting skills. His character Mad Dog Tannen is so fully realized that Wilson just disappears into the role. Watching him play the Wild Western bully you’d swear the producers just brought a real-life old West character out of the past just to antagonize Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox).
As the bully archetype of thie third movie, Mad Dog is more terrifying than either Biff or Griff from the first two films. Wilson’s amazing performance does wonders for making up for the absence of Crispin Glover and Jennifer Wells.
The Bad
Sadly, the rest of the actors don’t elevate up to Wilson’s level. I talked before in my review of BttFII how the movies start feeling less like ensemble pieces and more like the Michael J. Fox / Christopher Lloyd show. This focus continues in BttFIII. Once again, Michael J. Fox plays an ancestor; this time an Irish relative named Seamus McFly. Married to Maggie McFly (Lea Thompson, which re-establishes the Oedipus complex the first movie tried so hard to avoid), Fox here tries and fails to sustain an Irish accent, which is a shame as Seamus is central to the plot as a Jiminy Cricket type. Between Fox’s awful accent and the icky feeling I get whenever I see Fox and Thompson together on screen, I almost wish Jeffery Weissman had been cast as Seamus instead.
The newest addition to the cast, Mary Steenburgen, is largely given nothing to do except play the damsel in distress. Here’s the thing: Deadwood spoiled me on Westerns. That show was filled with such strong female characters that Steenburgen’s waif-y Clara Clayton just seems like a lazily written character. She exists solely to inject a romantic subplot into the movie, previously made absent by the decision not to include McFly’s girlfriend Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) in the time-traveling shenanigans. Jennifer is also so underwritten I’m not sure how she’d act in the Wild West. But I hope she wouldn’t swoon as much as Clara Clayton.
The Mediocre
Much like Army of Darkness, BttFIII is a definite genre break from its predecessors. Where BttF was a sic-fi rom-com, and BttFII contained more head-tripping time travel paradoxes, BttFIII is a Western, but not a very good one. Where McFly tries his best to stay incognito in 1955, blending in as best he can, neither McFly nor Doc seem to try very hard to assimilate into the culture of 1885. For a scientist concerned about avoiding universe-ending paradoxes, Doc especially in this movie seems to not care about covering his true identity. The clincher for me was when Doc didn’t bother hiding or destroying evidence in his workshop that he was a time traveller (going so far as to leave a model with the words Time Machine in plain sight). It’s as if he writers stopped caring by the last movie in the series and simply wrote out the quickest way to end the trilogy. As a result, character motivations are messy; especially Doc’s infatuation with Clayton, which seems like an obvious plot device than a logical turn of events. Lazy writing breeds lazy moviemaking, and BttFIII, while mildly amusing in spots, fails to live up to the first movie, or even the second.
tl;drs
Blank is a blanker version of blank: Back to the Future, Part III is the only time anyone will cast Michael J. Fox in a Western.
Screen credits over/under: Under. BttFIII was written by franchise stalwarts Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale.
Recommended if you like: Westerns, time travel plot holes
Better than I expected: Thomas F. Wilson gives the performance of the series as Mad Dog Tannen; his presence is the highlight of the movie.
Worse than I hoped: Picking up on all the plot holes and tired cliches I missed when I was 12 and watching this for the first time.
Back to the Future, Part III would work better as a(n): Animated series. Oh…wait…
Verdict: Solidly mediocre, BttFIII is fine to watch if you’re into a Back to the Future marathon, but I wouldn’t watch it on its own.
