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As appealing as that eye candy is, it’s all plot mechanics. It lacked the marketing hook of Hill Valley’s futuristic setting (self-lacing sneakers!) and alternate realities, with Marty Forrest Gump-ing through key moments from the first film.
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(Though saddling middle-aged Doc with a love story did dampen the film’s appeal to the teen audience comprising its Amblin-y, four-quadrant demographic.) By mooring the story to the franchise’s beating heart - the dynamic between Marty and Doc - BTTF III seems to be course-correcting for the criticisms leveled at its predecessor’s convoluted, more plot-driven story. The latter takes center stage in this sequel, which picks up where Part II left off by having Marty reach back in time to the Wild West - Hill Valley 1885 - to save Doc from being murdered “over a matter of 80 dollars” at the hands of ruthless outlaw “Mad Dog” Tannen (Biff’s ancestor, played once again by Biff himself, Thomas F. Fox) and his eccentric pal, time machine inventor Emmett “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd). What it lacks in hoverboards and flying DeLoreans, Back to the Future Part III makes up for by having a surplus of that which the fan-favorite BTTF II lacks: character-first genre storytelling, with big emotional stakes and character arcs that satisfyingly pay off five years’ worth of adventures with “slacker” Marty McFly (Michael J. Shot back-to-back with its more commercially successful (and often meme’d) predecessor, Back to the Future Part II (1989), this underrated entry in director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale’s franchise may have been considered an underwhelming conclusion to the time-traveling franchise, but the film has only gotten better with age in the 30 years since it was released May 25, 1990. Back to the Future Part III is significantly better than many ’90s kids let on.