When you've been to the '50s and the not too distant future, where do you go next? That was the quandary facing Robert Zemeckis and his writing partner Bob Gale when they were putting the finishing touches on what would soon become the Back to the Future trilogy. They had already explored the Eisenhower Era and the dance that featured prominently in the life of Marty McFly and his mom and dad. They'd also gone forward, finding potential humor in technology-based riffs and the always intriguing "where are they now" dynamic. For Zemeckis, the answer was simple. He wanted to investigate a moviemaking genre that he loved as a kid. But the question soon became whether a 1990 audience appreciate a return to the days of frontiersmen and gunfighters. With Back to the Future Part III, the results (and reception) were definitely hit and miss.

With Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) disappearing at the end of Part II, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) discovers that his mad scientist pal has been sent back to the old west circa 1885. Luckily, the time machine has been stored away in a local cave for just such an occasion. Marty makes his way back to the frontier era, and discovers that the doctor is in trouble with a local band of desperados led by the great, great grandfather of Biff, Buford "Mad Dog" Tanner (Thomas F. Wilson). With the help of his own distant forefather Seamus (Fox) and an arriving locomotive, Marty hopes to get his friend back to the future and save him from a Main Street shootout and a trip to the boneyard. Unfortunately, the arrival of a beautiful school teacher named Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen) threatens to alter the plans.

Moving everything to the Wild Wild West may have seemed like a novel idea at the time (especially in light of the genre's fading fortunes at the box office), but in light of the recent rash of excellent oaters, Back to the Future Part III now seems a tad twee and superficial. Granted, we enjoy the numerous nods to famous range riders from the past -- including the clever references to Clint Eastwood -- but overall, the premise seems stolen from a cut-rate version of Six Gun Territory. Because of the fairly sound idea of placing modern people in an old world setting, along with our familiarity with the characters, we're fairly confident that things will be interesting and entertaining. But when looking at the Back to the Future mythos in totality, going back to California circa the Gold Rush just seems strange.

Of course, the actors give it a gallant try. Newcomer to the BTTF family Steenburgen is quite good as the cursory love interest/schoolmarm. She's not too modern to make her Clara Clayton believable, but does suffer from being a little too late to the overall trilogy party. Similarly, Lloyd is required to be more subdued here, relegated to playing romantic and heroic when we're used to his frantic, flailing funny business. As usual, Wilson turns Buford into a wonderful combination of moron and menace, and Fox fills in many of the gaps in entertainment the Western genre creates. Still, Zemeckis makes a few missteps here. While he handles the action with his usual aplomb, the cameo from ZZ Top, for example, is just plain silly.

In the end, we get a rather incomplete ending to the otherwise excellent Back to the Future conceit. By staying in the 1880s for so long, we lose much of the magic from the space-time continuum concept, and most of the faux genre beats grow aggravating after a while. After a slam-bang start, this is one series that slowly trailed off into the sunset.