Back to the Future Part II: Critic Reviews

It manages to be giddily and merrily mind-boggling rather than confusing.

Cleverly plotted, but commercially overloaded.

The latest must-see, peer pressure, carve the logo on your head, designer blue jean experience.

The movie is fun, mostly because it's so screwy.

By the end, you may feel that you've just sat through a feature-length commercial for both part one (which has to be seen to make this sequel comprehensible) and part three (a trailer for it literally ends part two).

Zemeckis' fascination with having characters interact at different ages of their lives hurts the film visually, and strains credibility past the breaking point, by forcing him to rely on some very cheesy makeup designs.

one-half a very bad movie and one-half a very good movie

Sure, [Back to the Future II] has a clunky first act - which takes place in a hilariously overblown futuristic society - but the film knows just how, and when, to entertain us, and it does so in spades.

Lackluster yet benign time-travel sequel.

Taken as a pair, the first two films ask a number of unresolved and unresolvable questions about causality, order, and intention; and taken as a pair, they're also a hell of a lot of fun.

The one thing the film got right was the crushed effect the media's growing omnipresence has had on human existence.

See website for more details.

An ambitious film that fails to recreate the warmth or excitment of the first Back To The Future.

Solidly entertaining.

There are definitely aspects of laziness to the script--jokes which haven't been fully considered, simpleminded characterizations, subplots which have no life outside of the narrative--but at the same time the movie has a spirit of exploration and daring,

The film works best through its magnificent technical achievements (the visual effects received an Oscar nomination) and the inherent charm of Fox, Lloyd and, especially, the delightfully menacing Thomas F. Wilson.

It turned off most viewers, but fascinated me.

The relatively quaint and simple time travel arc from BTTF gets far more confusing and, in some ways, more fulfilling.

It's impressive entertainment, and best of all, it never degenerates into Spielbergian sentimentality: you can laugh, be thrilled and think without feeling embarrassed.