So everyone has seen this film, right? Right? I don’t need to explain how a high schooler is somehow friends with a disgraced nuclear physicist?? Or how he goes back in time and somehow ends up with his mother falling in love with him?? Okay great. If you’re aware of those two key features you are aware this is probably one of the greatest films cinema has ever produced.
Back to the Future follows Marty McFly, a high school student who is sent 30 years into the past by a time travelling car, as he meets his younger parents before they become dysfunctional. It has perpetually quotable one-liners and great laugh out loud moments. It’s the ultimate feel good film, but it does also have some good life lessons for the future.
Primarily, Marty manages to (I’d say spoiler alert but the film did come out 36 years ago) alter his entire family’s life and future by a few small acts. It tells the story of how your future is entirely your own making, and it doesn’t take a big event to change your future for the better (if you don’t count your future son coming back to see you in a time machine as a big event). In the words of the aforementioned disgraced nuclear physicist, “Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one”.
And if you do watch this film and enjoy it, you’re in luck! There are two further films, innovatively named Back to the Future 2 and Back to the Future 3. Now if that’s not a testament to the franchise’s creatability, I don’t know what is.
“Five out of five.”