Back to the Future 30th Anniversary Trilogy — PICK
Tomorrowland (2015) — PASS

If you were online a couple of weeks ago, you could hardly miss all the hoopla around “Back to the Future Day” — Oct. 21, 2015, the date that Marty McFly, all the way back in the 1980s, leaped ahead 30 years to an alternate version of our own time, with flying cars, hoverboards and dehydrated instant pizza. The Back to the Future Trilogy — specifically, the first act of Part II — didn’t get the future entirely wrong. Marty’s video phone call is a lot like Skype. The Jaws franchise died a long time ago, but the other 1970s blockbuster franchise, Star Wars, is still going strong. And what about the Cubs and the World Series? The fact that the Cubs were in the running almost vindicates the film’s prescience.

Alas, it must be admitted that the 2015 material is by far the worst part of the trilogy — but the whole thing is worth watching, and the terrific first film is worth watching again and again. With equal parts hilarity, nostalgia, science fiction, screwball comedy and white-knuckle suspense in a complex storyline wound tighter than a yo-yo in a centrifuge, it’s brilliantly constructed and nearly universal in its appeal. Like many time-bending stories, Back to the Future is about facing — and overcoming — the mistakes or errors of the past. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, bringing deft physical comedy to a winning performance) seems like a pretty together guy, but he must confront the legacy of his parents’ youthful foibles in order to overcome his own.

For another dose of nostalgic futurism, there’s Tomorrowland, the first disappointment from director Brad Bird, a movie that teases us with visions of an idyllic Trekkish or Jetsons-esque future-topia, but delivers only well-staged action sequences, hairsbreadth escapes and a looming dystopia that’s ultimately averted in a big fight scene that involves blowing up a Black Box of Badness. Really? I expected more from the maker of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.