Marty McFly is your typical teen. Stays up late, loves rock ‘n’ roll, loves his girlfriend. His family, though is a bit strange. His father’s a pushover, Mom likes to drink a little too much and the rest of his family is pretty dysfunctional. Marty’s only real friend is Doc Brown, Hill Valley’s eccentric scientist. Doc asks Marty to meet him one night in the mall’s parking lot around midnight as he wants to show Marty his latest invention.
Marty goes and learns that Doc thinks he’s built a time machine using a DeLorean. The last piece- plutonium, which Doc has acquired through less-than-legal means. Doc shows Marty how to set the time machine’s date and tells him that when the car reaches 88 MPH, that’s when the machine will activate.
Unfortunately, someone else wants the plutonium. A van comes careening into the parking lot, filled with men (Libyan terrorists) toting machine guns. Doc is shot, and Marty has only one means of escape-the DeLorean. Marty takes the car and speeds through the parking lot. Upon hitting 88 MPH, he is sent into the past, November 5th, 1955 to be exact- the very day that Doc first dreamed up the time machine. The car comes to a stop just outside of town and will no longer start. Marty pushes the car behind a billboard, and walks into town not realizing at first that he’s in the past. When he encounters his teen-aged father in the malt shop, Marty realizes Doc did indeed create a time machine and hunts down the Doc Brown of 1955 to figure out how he can get home.
Through a series of events, however, Marty changes the past so that his parent don’t meet like they were supposed to, and a picture he carries of his siblings begins to fade. He tracks down the Doc Brown from 1955 who tells him he must get his parents together or Marty will fade out of existence. Marty knows he only has a few days to whip his father into shape and gets his parents to kiss at the “Enchantment Under the Sea” high-school dance, the very night his mother told him she first fell in love with his father.
So, not only must Marty unite his parents and save himself and his family, he also needs to figure out a way to get back home. The plutonium is gone and the only thing that can generate enough electrical power is a lightning bolt. His one chance? The night lightning struck the town’s clock tower–the same night as the dance, November 12th. Time is short!
“Back to the Future” is by far one of the best, most inventive movies of the 1980s. It launched Michael J. Fox’s movie career and has remained a favorite of mine for years. It’s a movie that the whole family can enjoy, but because it does contain a bit of adult language, some parents may feel it is better suited for older children (perhaps ages 8-9 and up).
Rated PG for language and mild violence
Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd (Doc), Lea Thompson (Lorraine McFly) and Crispin Glover (George McFly)