Back to the Viking Future
SF films of the late 1980s
Originally written: November 1989
Back to the Future II
Erik the Viking
I had a fairly equivocal reaction to the first of the Back to the Future films. The snigger-behind-the-hand attitude to sex (probably derived from Spielberg's influence) derogated from the effect of the gosh-wow action that made up the main part of the movie. It seems to me that Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale had a greater input in the second (titled, with some originality, Back to the Future II) and it shows. There is a much more light-hearted feeling in the sequel, redolent of Zemeckis' other films, like Romancing the Stone and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Joe Bob says that all true (and good) sequels are the simple retelling of the same (and previously successful) film. Joe Bob will be disappointed by BttFII because it not only expands on the original, it complements it in a number of ways. One doesn't have to have seen the original but it helps.
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The weakest part of the sequel is its first 15 minutes. In order to get the plot going, they have the Prof and Marty go to the future to save Marty's prospective son. Marty's girl-friend is with them but dispensed with rather peremptorily. There is some Spielbergian playing around with the future McFly family (Michael J Fox in several forms) and Biff and descendant, the end result of which is an alteration of the past along an alternate time-line. The 1985 dystopic present is well realised and has enough menace to underpin the subsequent frenetic adventure/comedy with serious threat. The Prof and Marty have to return to Hill Valley in 1955 to set things right. Here they have to avoid their other selves as their paths cross the plot of the original movie. They manage to set things reasonably well in order when complications set in sufficient to strand Marty in 1955 and the Prof in 1885 (and the Wild West), thereby setting up the third film which was filmed simultaneously with this one.
The construction of the film, after initial trivialised future, is good, and reflects a more than passing understanding the conventions of time travel stories as they have been developed in the literature. Amazingly, the acting is more than passable: Zemeckis keeps a tighter rein on Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox demonstrates again that he is a more than capable light comedy actor. The Griff/Biff character is very agrannoying to the detriment of the story but everything rushes along so well that these minor inconveniences can be ignored and one can be carried along.
The major drawback was the music - another gushing cacophony by Goldsmith out of Williams, although written by neither.
Back to the Future II is that rare sequel that exceeds its predecessor, and, while it is not a great movie in any sense, nor a match for either Field of Dreams or Baron Munchausen as film or as fantasy, it is a more than passable waste of time.
Monty Python And The Holy Ragnarok
With Erik the Viking, Terry Jones obviously started trying to do to the Norse myths what the Monty Python team had dome to the Arthurian legends. He ran short of inspiration. And Tim Robbins is no Graham Chapman substitute. The result is more than a little messy.
He has done a good job of deHollywoodising the Viking story, in much the same way that Arthur was released from the tinsel and dross, but has not been able to put the manic, anarchic capper on the straight bits that should form the base. There are many good bits here, and lots of good ideas, but it does not add up to a successful mix.
I liked many of the crew, particularly the Berserker family, and Cleese's cameo as the bureaucratic Viking was OK, but there are too many misses: the whole Hi-Brazil schtick is unsuccessful, Tim Robbins, who did very well as a crazy mixed-up young baseball pitcher on his way to "the Show", doesn't carry the right authority to play the straight centre in a farce, and what the hell Mickey Rooney is doing here is anyone's guess: he cannot act and looks out of place.
The comparisons with the contemporary Adventures of Baron Munchausen are interesting (especially due to the presence of Charles McKeown, Munchausen's scriptwriter, in the cast). The two films have the same sort of structure, with a series of fantastic adventures being experienced by a strange crew. In both, there is a sadistic bureaucrat who is the major antagonist. There are similarities between Munchausen's arrival on the moon and the Viking crew at Asgard. But where Gilliam's piece retains some unity of development, Erik never quite settles on the choice between antic comedy and epic adventure.
Pity, really, because there was the makings of a great movie here; and what we see is a muddle. Tolerable but annoying for its missed opportunities. Still, the ads have it right: there is some really great scenery.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]