It might be hard to believe now, but when it first came out in 1989, some people didn’t really like Back to the Future: Part II. Recognised today as perhaps the greatest film ever made for the silver screen, critics like Gene Siskel called it “very gadget-filled and really noisy in an unpleasant way”. Hard to believe today, I know.
Rolling Stone recently dug up the 1989 Siskel and Ebert exchange about the film — again, the greatest achievement in cinema — and it’s fun to watch. If only because we all know that history has shown Siskel to be so incredibly wrong. And Ebert’s half-hearted defence of the film is weak at best.
RIP two great movie critics who are probably staring down from heaven with their hoverboards (I imagine time doesn’t exist in heaven and you can play with any gadgets you want), wishing they could go back and recognise just how great BTTF2 really is.
We miss you, Siskel and Ebert. But boy, were you wrong about this one.
Picture: Screenshot from Back to the Future 2, the greatest movie ever produced in human history