By far the most overwrought of the trilogy, this is a very mixed bag of a movie. Following straight on from the end of the original (the scenes are actually partially re-shot so that Elizabeth Shue can replace Claudia Wells in the thankless role of Jennifer), it doubles back and forth around the events of the original. There's no doubting its ingenuity, and you have to have a perverse admiration for a movie so byzantine in its plotting that the characters have to stop and map out the plot on a blackboard halfway through. But there's something more than just Crispin Glover missing here.

It would be wrong to say that the film fails to capture the charm of the original - it's just that it's there only in fits and starts. Zemeckis gets things off to an okay start, but in the second half of the future sequence and the "nightmare 1985" portion the film really goes off the rails. The film not only drags; it develops a nasty, unpleasant tone. The attempts to set up plot points (some of which aren't paid off until Part III) become much more laboured and obvious - it doesn't fit together seamlessly the way the original did. Worse, character is sacrificed to plot this time: the way Marty reacts to being called a chicken, for example, unforgivably undermines the character.

What lifts the film, and makes me prefer it to the much more even part III, is the final sequence set in the 1950s. The tone is far truer to the original here (though the odd grating touch remains), and its fun to be back in this milieu. The events run parallel to those of the original, and much of it is fiendishly clever: essentially, Marty must work to ensure that the first film can run out its course uninterrupted. By literally revisiting the original, the sequel has a big head start in recapturing the fun of the first film. Instead of simply reproducing the plot of the original, as most other sequels would, the film can go back and rework it, adding events that we didn't realise occurred. It's just a shame that the rest of the film couldn't be as interesting.

The thing you notice when you've watched it a few too many times: The cliffhanger ending of this film, in which Marty appears and tells Doc that he's stranded again, moments after the other Marty departs, has been much criticised. Yet it's one of my favourite moments in the film. However, if you think about it, the timing of the events is all wrong. In the original, Marty left the dance and had to rush to make it to the time machine before 10.04, when the lightning hit the clock tower. In this film, however, he leaves the dance, gets the almanac off Biff, flies with Doc to the outside of town where another bolt of lightning hits the DeLorean, meets the postal service guy, and still gets back into town (either on foot or with Mr Post) a few seconds after the same 10.04 lightning bolt. How?

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For my review of Part I click here.