Review: Back to the Future: The Game (Parts 4-5) [SPOILERS!]

This is Part II of my review of Back to the Future: The Game. Now that I've finished experiencing the entirety of the Back to the Future game cinematics, I can give a more accurate review and account of the story as a whole. Please refer back to my first review for details on parts 1-3.

But before I review the game, let me share my impressions that I had after completing the game.

My First Impressions:

Ugh... Just ugh... That's all I can say. It's been approximately 5 minutes since I watched the conclusion to this game, and I'm absolutely awe-struck... I don't know what they were thinking when they concocted this story, but some of it is downright cartoony. There is absolutely no way that I buy any of this being in the official canon of the movies. No way at all.

My Second Impressions:

It's been about 30 minutes... There is no way to review this game... It's a clusterfuck of a story; like a balled-up spider web that I have to untangle with pliers... What a fucking mess...

My Third Impressions:

Okay... Get a grip on yourself... We can... I mean, I can do this...

My Review:

Alright... For posterity's sake, and for the sake of understanding my review, and thus my complaints with the game itself beyond the points that I mentioned in my first review, I am going to post the entire story.

Yes, MASSIVE PLOT SPOILERS beyond this point. I am doing this in order to fully dissect the plot in its entirety.

As quoted from Wikipedia:

"On May 14, 1986, Marty McFly is trying to adjust to a life without his best friend, scientist Doctor Emmett "Doc" Brown, whose belongings are being sold off by the bank following his disappearance six months ago."

My first problem has nothing to do with this establishing intro, but the dream that Marty has just before all of this is established. The game starts us off by replicating a scene from the 1st movie; the scene where Marty is taping Doc in the Twin Pines mall. Everything goes pretty much according to the original history of the 1st movie until he sends the Delorean forward through time. The Delorean doesn't come back and Doc says "I've made a grave mistake." Then he fades away... Marty panics and then wakes up in his bed in 1986 and asks himself where Doc is.

Now, I think it's important to mention that this is NOT an alternate reality, though the game would have you figure that out for yourself, only much later on than need be. It wasn't clear to me until I had finished watching two episodes when I got certain clues that this was in fact a sequel to the 3rd movie and not an alternate reality. That one small scene is a central point of confusion and why it was completely and horribly written. It shouldn't have even been in the game to begin with.

"Marty is surprised when the time-traveling Delorean suddenly shows up without a driver, a recorded message from Doc explaining that he had built a safety device which automatically returned the car to the present, presuming he might get into trouble in the past and trusting Marty to save him."


Marty: "I am surprised."

First off, I'm just going to say right now that it is NEVER explained how or where Doc got this Delorean. It isn't established that he borrowed it from himself at some point in time, nor is it alluded to at any time. It is a complete mystery... or as I like to call it, a plot hole.

By the way, this is a horrible way to start a movie, let alone a game. It should never start on a down note. Here's how they SHOULD have started it:

Marty is living his dream and trying to make the best of his future by landing gigs and going to the Battle of the Bands, even. This way we know that Marty's arc from the end of the 3rd movie holds up and it has forever changed him. Jennifer and him are well on their way to being together forever and then he can talk about him missing Doc (This also establishes Jennifer in the game before he meets her alternate self when he changes the past). From there, we can continue with him hearing about the bank selling off all his stuff and then the Delorean coming to him at Doc's house.

On with the review...

"Using clues in the car, Marty visits the elderly Edna Strickland, a former reporter, and finds that Doc, posing as "Carl Sagan", has been stranded in 1931, charged with the arson of a speakeasy under the mob boss Kid Tannen's control, and was killed by Tannen's gang the next day. He returns to 1931, and with the help of Doc's younger self Emmett and Marty's grandfather Artie, he is able to rescue Doc safely. As they are about to return to the future, Marty finds himself disappearing, a result of Artie being killed by Tannen's gang, and the two return to town to correct the timeline, further engaging the help of Trixie Trotter, Tannen's moll, and Officer Parker, Jennifer's grandfather. Their involvement causes Emmett and Edna to meet, and the two fall in love, unbeknownst to Doc or Marty."

I have no idea why this story features an arson fire or such an annoyingly flat character as Edna Strickland whose only goal in life seems to be torturing people with her personality... Forgiving that one instance, this arson fire plot line seems out of place in the Back to the Future canon. In all of the Back to the Future movies, the main themes are greed, love, jealousy and fear. It is important to have a theme in your story for the audience to relate to. Without a relatable story, you have a boring story.


Trust me. She ain't as cute as she seems.

For example, the plot line from BTTF1 was one produced from George McFly's fear of Biff Tannen. He had to get over this fear in order to obtain the love of Lorraine, his future wife and mother to Marty. Everyone had a stake in this plot line and something to lose.

The almanac plot line of BTTF2 was one produced from greed. Marty had one simple greedy wish to "make a couple of bucks on the side" in getting that almanac from the future. From this spawned an unintended screw-up in the timeline by Biff taking advantage of the time machine. It is from this that we learn that greed just doesn't pay and that if we abuse the power of time travel, we will be punished severely. This is a powerful message.

Finally, the plot line from BTTF3 involving trying to save Doc from being shot, yet discovering that Marty might also be shot for acting like such a tough guy is one motivated by pride and, ostensibly, fear. Doc's own theme is motivated by love as he falls for Clara. His story is touching and relatable while we feel for Marty in perhaps just as painful a way.

The arson fire plot line of this game is so abstract and so pointless that nobody can relate to it outside of bar owners or 1930's enthusiasts. Doc is in jail here, but there is no asshole cop that put him there who needs to be put in his place. There is no mob goon that is responsible for his imprisonment and who ultimately committed the fire. It's one, long, blameless story where the twist is always more important than if it's a good story or not. Sure the story packs some big twists, but at what cost?

If the storyline was simple and to the point as well as had a cohesive theme, it might have been more engrossing. Take any of these fine stories, for example: "Get back the almanac!" or "Get your parents to fall in love!" or "Get back to the future!"

Perhaps the biggest problem is that these games add so many complications to the canon of Back to the Future, since everything usually takes place sandwiched between the timelines of 1955 Hill Valley and 1885 Hill Valley. You would think they would try their best to tip-toe around certain plot details from the first three movies, yet they seem so overly cocky that they're NOT ruining things that they manage to trample all over them in the process.


Echhhposition.

"Doc and Marty attempt to return to 1986, but when they arrive, Doc disappears and the car crashes outside the walled city of Hill Valley, run as a totalitarian society by Citizen Brown, a parallel version of Doc. As Marty investigates, he meets his parents and Jennifer and finding they live in fear of Citizen Brown.

These are also the most boring parts of this time period, where you are forced to sit through dozens of exposition in introducing this alternate timeline to you... It in no way compares to the alternate 1985 from BTTF2 where Marty just had to walk around to get an idea for what things were like in that town. Here, every single mind-numbing bit of information is drilled into your head because you need to know every single damn thing that goes on in this town... except that you don't and most of it is a waste of time.

Beyond this, there is a deeply disappointing scene that I covered in my last review, but I have to bring it up again just to drill in how disappointing this game can get... In this alternate version of 1986, Marty is a complete nerd, supposedly, and Jennifer is a punker. Marty has to prove his worth with the guitar against some jerk who's supposedly the best guitar player in town. This is when they could have played Power of Love by Huey Lewis, but instead they opted for guitar shorthand where it feels more like inaudible riffs than actual music. I loved Marty's "heavy" version of Power of Love in the first movie and this would have been the perfect opportunity to revive it, but instead they favored some lame gag where the jerk falls in a dumpster while showing off his "moves." What a waste.


Ya could'a been Guitar Hero... but yer just a midi.

"Marty soon learns about Edna's influence on Emmett's life, and she used him to enforce her moral standards to create a perfect, crime-free society. Marty is able to convince Citizen Brown of his true calling in science, much to Edna's dismay."

Here is where things get dicey. This is perhaps the most interesting that the game ever gets in terms of plot. Once Marty confronts Citizen Brown, we are treated to an intense conversation that conjures up questions of why time travel was ever thought up in the first place if a dystopian society was what resulted from it. Further more, Citizen Brown's desk is inside the courthouse right behind the innards of the clock. It makes for a very intense scene. This whole time, Citizen Brown is convinced Marty is a psychopath in trying to convince him he's a time traveler. Once he convinces him of it in showing a picture of himself with Marty in 1931, Citizen Brown goes with Marty back to 1931.

What's also perhaps an unintentional bonus is that Citizen Brown looks like Christopher Lloyd's character Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, borrowing that tyrannical sense of strictness for his character here.


Did I lie?

"Brown helps Marty fix the Delorean, and the two return to 1931, a few months after their initial encounters there.They find that Edna is trying to guide Emmett's scientific genius towards law-abiding, social conditioning technology. Though Marty insists they help Emmett to get back on his own work, Brown becomes concerned that Marty couldn't care less for Edna's or Brown's own future, and he drives off. Marty successfully breaks Emmett's and Edna's relationship, and Emmett comes to realize science is his true calling."

This part of the game is also boring, for the most part. Marty has to find a way to get Edna to fall back out of love with Emmett, and the only way to do that is to make him seem like he has a criminal mind or is capable of the same horrible things as Kid Tannen. This involves a lot of tedious puzzle-solving and the pace of the game is reaching record slows here.


Just jump, Emmett. You'll save yourself a whole lot of backtracking later on.

All the while, Citizen Brown is trying to calibrate the Delorean. He keeps testing it by going forward in time in a few minutes and ends up going back in time about ten hours. As he calibrates it more, the time intervals begin to improve, but he doesn't get to finish calibrating it before leaving with Edna.

The confrontation with Citizen Brown and Marty is a key note in this episode and one to pay attention to. There is a divergence of motivation at this point where Marty seems insistent that they break up Emmett and Edna, but Citizen Brown feels that science is the real issue here. It's science that's the problem. At this time, the story is starting to pick up as the drama picks up. This is also when the plot is starting to be motivated by love, which is when the story starts to actually seem relatable and interesting. Surprise, surprise.

Just to make things clear to those who will probably never play this game, never in this game do you feel like any of it is up to snuff with the original movies, so when I say positive things, it's always taking into account that it's like a crippled dog trying to run and miraculously waddling instead. From the animation to the story to the sound design... You always feel like you're lowering your standards "because it's a game." I don't see why this always has to be the case as dozens of games have a flair for cinematics these days. It really doesn't have to be this complicated.

"At the science expo, Brown and Edna have worked together to delay Emmett from displaying his flying car, but Marty rescues Emmett in time, and exposes Edna as the speakeasy arsonist. Though Emmett is briefly distracted by the arrival of his father, Marty is able to help the two make amends, and the demonstration is a success. Marty finds that Edna has stolen the DeLorean and disappeared somewhere in time. Citizen Brown gets hit by the fleeing DeLorean, and fades away, his timeline erased. But soon Doc, as Marty knew him, arrives."

See, I can't tell what the writers were thinking... I mean, some of the things that young Emmett invents are impossible even by today's standards, let alone for 1931. I am often without words when I see such anachronistic inventions. Am I meant to believe that this kind of technology existed in that time period? Am I meant to induct this into the Back to the Future canon? or is this whole game just a cartoony riff on the events from the three movies? If so, why follow from where the 3rd movie left off at all? Why not just have Doc and Marty inexplicably back together again going on adventures together?

And getting back to accepting this invention that young Emmett apparently invented, I mean, if it WAS canon, then that would mean the Doc had access to a flying car throughout most of his life and therefore could have put flying circuits in the Delorean from the very beginning... but he doesn't and for very good fucking reason: THERE WERE NO FLYING CARS IN 1931. If I may take something that IS actually canon, Doc said in the first movie when he saw the Delorean for the first time, "I actually invent something that works!" This means that all of his inventions up until then were FAILURES! This game would have us believe everything worked perfectly for him his whole life, up until and including the Delorean itself... and apparently he's the father of the hover conversion system and nobody told Back to the Future Part 2.


Really...? I mean, really?!?

It's inconsistencies like this that drive me up a fucking wall with this game... I'm tired of them trampling all over logic and common sense in the pursuit of... whatever it was they were pursuing with this game.

REVIEW TIME... AGAIN

"As they greet each other, Hill Valley fades away around them, and they worry Edna has changed the past. After meeting Marty's great grandfather, they find Edna, elderly and living alone, and learn that she had traveled back to 1875 and had set Beauregard Tannen's saloon on fire, accidentally destroying the rest of the town in the process.

Let me try to understand this... Edna goes back to 1875, destroys the entire town, causing untold disaster to the Hill Valley timeline, and we're meant to believe that this does not cause a paradox to happen? Logically, by Edna screwing up the timeline in such a manner, she would have caused a paradox. The events of the 3rd movie had no way of happening if the town of Hill Valley was destroyed 10 years earlier. If those events never happened, that would have caused a paradox. It would be the same as if Marty, in the first movie, shot himself before he had a chance to go back to the future in 1955. It completely null and voids anything that happened after those events took place, so, in effect, Doc and Marty would have faded away due to irreparable damage being caused to the timeline.

This is what I mean about them being cocky about their story. It's as if they don't care or think of the ramifications of certain actions or they just completely ignore the rules of time travel set within this story and they just make up their own rules when they see fit. It's inconsistent and it makes no effing sense.

Of course, the original movie canon is at fault here too, though by a hair. In Back to the Future Part II, Marty and Doc return to 1985 after arriving back from the future, but it's changed, due to Old Biff screwing up events in the past. Logically, Doc and Marty should have faded away at this point upon arriving back into their own timeline. It happened to Old Biff in the future once he got back from changing events in 1955, so why not Marty and Doc? Because it's an inconsistency. The reason I am able to overlook this detail? Because that was actually a good and entertaining movie, while this is a predominantly boring piece of pseudo-cinema.

They are able to catch up to Edna in the past, prevent her from burning town the tavern, and return her and the DeLorean back to 1931, where she is arrested and put in jail with Kid Tannen. The second DeLorean fades away, having become unstable. Marty is initially shocked when he learns that Artie is marrying Trixie, but is relieved to know that was only her stage name, and his family line is still intact."

Who didn't see this coming? Yeah, that's actually your grandmother, Marty... I mean, it worked for Futurama, why not this? I don't understand why that even had to be a mystery to begin with. It's like everything else in this game. Bob Gale sucking on a lollipop: "Jus cuz."

Backing up a bit, that whole bit about trying to get to the bottom of where Hill Valley went was actually interesting, though I was a bit disappointed by Michael J. Fox's cameo appearance as Marty's great grandfather. I think it was the accent. I would have preferred if he just spoke in his normal accent. It distracted more than anything... though he did do a good job of protecting our heroes from the bitch that is Edna Strickland holding a rifle to their heads.


You keep on truckin', J. Fox.

Once they go back to 1875 to retrieve Edna, there are some puzzle elements that must be endured. Once that's done with, they now have Edna on the run.

This is when the real fun starts.

Doc and Marty are hovering above Edna as she's driving the other Delorean. They need to attach some satellite dishes to Edna's Delorean in order to control her flux capacitor and send her back in time with them... but Marty has to get out and literally attach them himself. How will he do this, you may ask...


WITH THE HOVERBOARD FROM 2015. THAT'S HOW.

Oh... Oh yes... I literally cheered in my seat at this moment. This is perhaps the coolest moment in this entire episode and, perhaps, the entire game. Marty gets out of the car and attaches the satellites (three in total) to Edna's car and has to aim them at Doc's satellite. Meanwhile, Edna is trying to cause vehicular manslaughter as she swerves the car whenever she catches a glimpse of your face. It's obviously not as harrowing or entertaining as the scene from BTTF2 when Marty tries to get the almanac from Biff's car on the road, but it definitely pays homage to it. After Marty gets the signals of the car to line up with Doc's, they floor it to the future where Edna crashes into the jail, conveniently. The cop from before arrests her and locks her up with Kid Tannen, assuredly to get raped... I was confused when I heard Doc's explanation for the Delorean disappearing as it becoming unstable. I think it was just a convenient way to cover up their mistakes of having two Deloreans in the same time period (Though, to get technical, there were three, since one is presumably still safe in the cave from the third movie... Though, who the hell knows if that's true anymore in this canon.)

"Doc and Marty return to 1986, where Marty finds nearly everything is the same as when he left. In this timeline, however, Doc had never disappeared, instead staying part-time in his father's home along with Clara and his children. Furthermore, Edna and Kid Tannen have become married since their time in jail, and her own personality has turned around for the better. Doc presents Marty with a book, the history of the McFly family, as a graduation present, which was the original reason he traveled back to 1931. They are both surprised when three separate DeLoreans appear, and future versions of Marty demand that Doc and Marty come with them to correct the future. As they argue which is the correct future, Doc and Marty take off into time in their DeLorean, preparing to investigate this new curiosity."

Wh... B... I don't... See... I... Whyyyyyyyyyy...?

This just doesn't make any damn sense. No damn sense at all... I give up.

Summary:

STORY... 6/10

The story is a mish-mash of horrible and interesting, but execution goes a long way. The execution here was poor most of the time because they decided to put in so much fluff in order to fit the events to the scope of a game. If they had told the story they wanted to tell in a more cohesive and cinematic way (and not JUST the action sequences), it would have been more interesting and entertaining, overall.

GAMEPLAY... 4/10

The game itself is disappointing because you're never actually controlling Marty doing anything cool, like driving the Delorean or riding on the hoverboard. It's just point and click nonsense, which isn't fun. It's never been fun. When you play a game, you expect that the action bits be in your control, but they never are in this game. It's massively disappointing... The puzzles that are here are creative, but they usually have no place in a Back to the Future game. It's like shoving a polar bear into a fishbowl. It just don't look right.

GRAPHICS... 6/10

Credit must be due to the art direction that this game received, but the animation department was lazy and made rookie mistakes most of the time. Character interactions look stiff and unrealistic. The only time character animations are believable are when they're running or walking. The facial expressions aren't very fluid and you can sense how the characters are being manipulated by strings pulling them along. It's like a puppet show.

MUSIC... 8.5/10

Since they stole most of the music from the first three movies, it's easy to rate this higher than the rest. They made up riffs based on the Back to the Future theme here and there to accompany the story, but a lot of times, the music is ill-fitted to the scene and isn't as appropriate as it could be.

SOUND... 6/10

The only reason I'm giving any credit here is because of the voice acting. Once Christopher Llyod gets going and cracks out of his craggy old voice, it's enjoyable for the most part. The guy who plays Marty also gets better with time as he gets into the groove of things. There are a few voices that are horrible, like Biff's, but for the most part they get everything right... The actual sound effects are pretty horrible, however, because a lot of times they don't sync up properly or even happen at all when they're supposed to. The sound department was really lazy when they worked on this game.

CLOSING STATEMENT

What's funny, or tragic, maybe, is that I love Back to the Future so much that I'm willing to suffer through any further sequels that they put out after this... Most of it is bad, but it's not completely devoid of entertainment value, and IT IS the best Back to the Future game ever created (which isn't really saying a whole lot). That being said, I enjoyed parts of the game, but dreaded most of it for the simple reason that it deserved better treatment than what we got.

FINAL REVIEW SCORE... 6/10 (Not an average)


Yeah... I know how ya feel, Marty.

My Idea for Jurassic Park IV

Alright, so riffing off of the recent news of Jurassic Park IV script being rewritten, I decided to take a crack at a Jurassic Park IV story because, frankly, I'm curious to see what I could come up with...

The first script handed in for the movie involved genetically engineered dinosaurs. I think Jurassic Park fans are pretty much all in agreement in thinking that genetically engineered dinosaurs seems like a pretty silly idea on paper... but I think there are certain negative connotations people have of that idea. “Genetically engineered” is such a broad term that I think people are automatically jumping to the worst possible conclusions; that it will be an almost fantastical Spiderman-like jump in plot logic and that these “genetically engineered” dinosaurs are going to be used in some kind of military initiative... It also gives people the idea that what would be enhanced about dinosaurs would be their intelligence; dinosaurs hatching plans and fighting a war with the humans and such. However, I don’t think this is necessarily the case.

Yeah... None of this.

My idea for the movie would start out with the military experimenting with the possibility of using dinosaurs to different ends, but mostly utilizing them as weapons... Yes, it’s the same vague idea as was rumored, but hear me out. Obviously it would be absolutely ridiculous to have Einstein-level dinosaurs running about scheming against the humans that created them. I don't think we're gonna have raptors running for senate anytime soon... Instead, in taking a cue from Malcolm from the first movie, “life will find a way.” You can’t stop life as much as you can stop nature, which is exactly what happens when these dinosaurs start developing gills and wings for flight.

Like this... only cooler... and less Sean Connery-y

But I’m getting ahead of myself... So, the military steps in to take control of the island, doing whatever they like with it. Now that Hammond is dead (or perhaps just loses control of the island in some fashion), the dinosaurs are now in the government’s control. From here, the government sends some research teams to try out some experiments on dinosaurs in trying to make them more adaptive and capable of being controlled, mentally.

On the island, the scientists are desperately trying to find the genome in a dinosaur that they can target to evolve and change at their discretion. Once they find it, they activate the genome which then sets in motion some evolutionary toll in the dinosaur. They dunk the dinosaur in water and it sprouts gills. It’s a resounding success. They start to replicate this experiment with all the dinosaurs and the first part of their duties is fulfilled.

But when the dinosaurs start to evolve, they are then capable of getting off the island. T-Rex’s start to form gills, raptors form wings, dilophosaurus’ start to resemble monkeys with opposable thumbs. They become even more powerful than they were previously and even grow in size. The team tasked with controlling and experimenting with these dinosaurs is now powerless and experts are sent in to deal with the problem. People who have dealt with this kind of thing before...

Enter Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler, etc. to save the day. The General who sent the order doesn’t see the point in bringing these so-called “experts” into the mix, but follows his orders given by the President. Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler suddenly being thrust back together to solve a problem is a bit awkward at first, but they start to get back into the swing of things before too long. They start to realize that the dinosaurs that reach the nearest island don't stay there--They use up whatever resources they can and then leave to go to the next island... They theorize that some force of nature is causing them to “island-hop” in an initiative to reach the mainland where there is the possibility for permanent subsistence. Something must be done.

Dr. Grant introduces an idea that if you give an animal in nature options, it will always take the route with lesser difficulty and higher rate of survival. Therefore, they start to lure them back to the island with dead cows and goats (reference!) as well as using sonar to push their attention in the opposite direction. The dinosaurs will turn back, right?

But they fail... big time. Even by following these suggestions, the dinosaurs remain persistent. Without causing a major upset in the ecosystem, they can’t seem to stop the dinosaurs from moving. The dinosaurs keep adapting to whatever they throw at them, so they just become more and more dangerous... They must come up with another plan and fast before the military decide to nuke them once and for all. That General's a real dick and will most likely get eaten by the end of the movie, because that's what happens to guys we don't like in Jurassic Park movies... but now they're out of ideas.

Enter the ever-reluctant Ian Malcolm.

Malcolm tries to help out, albeit with a bit of resistance. He realizes that targeting the genome was the military’s biggest mistake and what they need to do is reverse the process. That’s when they realize that they have to go back to the island where it all started in order to obtain the research that the scientists were working on (before they were, ya know, all eaten). This way they can form a reversing agent.

The General says that they must be the ones to go since they've been there before and because they know what to look for. All of them feel majorly boned, but reluctantly agree to go. They also bring along a few experts, but can't seem to find anyone who wants to risk their lives... except for Tim and Lex, both adults now and "evolved" into their natural career choices. Lex is an experienced computer programmer who can help them hack into the encrypted computers to retrieve the information they need and Tim... well, he’s probably been dreaming of going on another adventure for years with Dr. Grant. He's a budding archeologist... Malcolm is hesitant at first, but then just says “Fuck it. I’ll go.” Because, seriously, he’s getting used to this shit...

It would be great if Roland, the great hunter from the Lost World could return to offer up some of his expertise, but the actor died, so I doubt that would happen... Maybe the character has a son? Or it could just be someone on the island who has been dealing with these evolved creatures for years and knows how to handle them.

So yeah... That’s my idea. I don’t think it’s completely horrible, though it does need work, of course. I think it has a certain amount of sci-fi to it, but I don't think it's a huge jump in logic from the 1st film. It's a natural progression that these dinosaurs are to become a threat to the human race. This could just be the first in another trilogy, too.

The next movie could be if the dinosaurs laid eggs in the ocean while they were migrating from island to island. This causes a different upset because now the ecosystems are involved. The dinosaurs could work their way into these ecosystems and become apart of them. This isn't a problem until the dinosaurs start to attack ships and other oceanic constructs... I mean, that's not really a plot, but it's a beginning. I think having oceanic dinosaurs is also a logical step in the evolution of these beasts and something we shouldn't be afraid to explore.

Tell me what you all think.

Oh, and Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler get back together by the end of the film due to her divorce... It's a perfect ending.

Episode #5 - Men of a Certain Age

In keeping with the habit of reviewing things sporadically, randomly and pretty much whenever I damn well pleasedly, I'm now going to review a TV show... but a great one that you really should check out.

Men of a Certain Age. It's on TNT. They know drama... No kidding.

I don't think I can give any amount of justice in explaining this show to anyone. There's a certain tone as well as a certain remarkable sensibility to it that you can't quite put your finger on. Everything from the camera direction to the performances evokes a sense of empathic cinematic quality that makes you understand how everyone involved is feeling at that moment. The camera will focus on little things that seem unimportant, but are actually very telling.

But now I'm just dissecting... Which is not really what this show is about. This show is about people. It's about a struggle that people go through at a certain time in their life, how these people relate to the world around them. They're not young, but they're not exactly old. They're middle-aged, and they're going to show you that they've still got life left in them.

Our series regulars are Joe, Terry and Owen who are 40-something best friends since college that hang out regularly at a diner to talk about life, love and all the crap that comes with getting older. Joe (Ray Romano) owns a party store, aided by incompetent staff, both young and old. He is also divorced and has two children that he shares custody of. Terry (Scott Bakula) is an often single, out-of-work actor who never really made it in the business and is an incorrigible lady's man. Owen (Andre Braugher) is the son of a successful basketball player-turned-car dealership owner with the unique challenge of trying to live up to his father's expectations. He also has a wife and two kids that he loves dearly.

On paper, this idea sounds trite and overbearing in trying to rope in a certain kind of audience, but in watching the show, it becomes clear that these are just three very interesting leads whose lives you feel invested in. Each of them has their own set of unique problems that is handled with a great amount of care as you see them try to rise above their weaknesses and become the men they are deep inside. It becomes less about middle-aged men living as they've always lived and more about a 2nd coming of age tale. These men still have growing up to do and it's fun to watch them deal with it.

Ray Romano is hilarious here. I never really watched Everybody Loves Raymond, but with a title like that, can you really blame me? Ray Romano co-created this show with Mike Royce. It's surprising that Ray Romano created this show as it's not an endless laugh fest. It's a sometimes dramatic and painful experience watching this show sometimes, but it really makes the characters seem real, like they could be your mother, father, uncle or your own next-door neighbor. The writing is executed in a way that makes it able to relate to anyone (I'll put the age demographic from 20-80, though, just to be safe).

I'm a huge fan of Scott Bakula because of Quantum Leap, so whenever I hear that he's in some kind of project, I run over to it just in case it's something I might like. Good old Scott, he's likeable in pretty much anything he appears in (probably because he's a genuinely nice guy in real life), and he's just as likeable here, even if he is a bit of a womanizer. He's sweet and surprisingly sensitive at times, making you sympathize with his character.

Andre Braugher, who plays Owen, seems familiar, but I'm not really sure what I've seen him in before. However, his character has an amazing strength to him. He's soft-spoken most of the time and a deeply reasonable man just wanting to get his fair dues. He has a bit of a temper at times and a bit of a pessimistic side, but possessing an underlying gentle side as well. I think if there's one character I've rooted for most in this show, it's Owen.

I know I'm speaking in abstracts here, but I don't like spoiling shows or movies for people. I urge people to go out and watch movies/shows on their own and then come back and tell me what they like or don't like about them. If you've already seen the show, post your love for the show!

The 2nd half of the 2nd season just started up a week ago, so now's the time to get started! Definitely start with the 1st season, if you can.

My next review will probably be a movie of some kind. After that SHOULD BE the conclusion of Back to the Future: The Game as Part 5 is coming out at the end of this month.