Kindergarten Cop and Back To The Future

I had the pleasure of rewatching Kindergarten Cop and Back To The Future this week, the latter in a theatrical press preview celebrating its 25th anniversary. I think it's a rewarding exercise to revisit these films, because I remember so little about them from my childhood except that they were good. Were they really any good? And do they stand the test of time?

Confidently I can aver they are, and they do. Schwarzneggar is at his best as Detective John Kimble in Kindergarten Cop. I mean really. It's a mushy film all right, but heartfelt, and streaked with moments of real tension and enough red herrings to keep a casual viewer thoroughly engaged. It also dares to bring in child- and substance-abuse, again quite casually, suggesting a director entirely on top of his material. I boggled to think I'd loved this as a child and not understood at all some of the big issues being bandied around. At its heart, Arnold is both lovable and tough, and it's before the time when he starts to look simply terrifying (He's formidably muscled, as it is). He walks the line between action hero and soulful chap, and the plot elements are all there to make it work. Big tick!

Meanwhile, Zemeckis' '85 classic remains exactly that. The film received cheers and spontaneous applause as Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) and Dr Brown (Christopher Lloyd) get trapped in 1955 and Marty has to bring about his own parents' coupling. There's a big dose of incest awkwardness alongside humour and tension in equal measure, again, something I had entirely no recollection of as a child and now marvelled that I'd ever missed it. McFly's prudish mother turns out to be a real go-getter, much to Marty's own terror. It's great fun; like a joyful wedding, it demands smiles and happiness from its viewers. I couldn't quite believe that I didn't hold the film in even higher esteem, because I hurt my face smiling. Even the device of time travel, a slippery slope to losing an audience entirely, is kept just about simple enough, while being hammered home repeatedly, that one can feel like trying to wrap one's mind around the physics of it all isn't ruining the delight of Fox bouncing about a stage rocking out to bring about his parents' first kiss. Entirely wonderful.

Two classics that in my estimation deservedly remain so. 80s to early 90s blockbusters with punch and feeling.

~~~

1991

Arnold Schwarzneggar

dir. Ivan Reitman

1985

Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd

dir. Robert Zemeckis