Film

Back to the Future Part III (1990)

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

In this exuberant final instalment of the time-travelling trilogy, with Doc (Lloyd) happily settled in 1885, Marty (Fox) realises he must go back when he learns that Doc faces death at the hands of villainous Mad Dog Tannen (Wilson) in Hill Valley, a bustling gold rush town. Marty's arrival, coinciding with an Indian charge, involves an explosive fusion of history and modern technology, with damage to the DeLorean. As Doc and Marty hastily try to assemble transport home, there comes an even more complicated development: Doc falls for a schoolmarm (Steenburgen). The resulting movie is affectionate, innovative, and vaguely lunatic. With Marty's experience of the past filtered through a lifetime of watching Westerns on TV, he struts around as though he'd wandered onto the set of a Sergio Leone movie. Western conventions are gleefully challenged, and with the camera gliding and swooping over the action (though visual pyrotechnics never obscure the emotional core), Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale - insisting that this is the final outing - bring off an audacious marriage of genres to grand and enjoyable effect.

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