‘Back to the Future: The Musical’ Broadway review: Watch the movie instead

nypost.com:

plopped a boxing ring in the middle of the orchestra nearly 10 years ago.But Huey Lewis did not sing “Power of Car,” he sang “Power of Love.” And heart is completely absent from director John Rando’s shiny and serviceable staging of the beloved 1985 science-fiction movie.Coursing emotion, teen angst and can-do scrappiness are what set director Robert Zemeckis’ original film apart from other entries in the time-travel genre. “Back To The Future” wasn’t HG Wells or “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.” And it’s hardly remembered as a flashy spectacle, either.

The flick was a fun ‘80s adventure romp about a guitarist who winds up in 1955 Main Street, America. “Future” didn’t star somebody serious like Charlton Heston in “The Planet of the Apes,” but instead cast smart-aleck Michael J.

Fox, who was then best known as the hilarious Alex P. Keaton on “Family Ties.”On Broadway, however, we have a bloated gizmo nobody asked for that, while enjoyable in parts and with an embraceable star in Casey Likes as Marty, never justifies its perplexing existence as a stage musical. “Reenact the movie, sure,” the audience sits there thinking. “But please stop singing.”Besides its unfortunate songs and some 2023 tweaks — Doc Brown (Roger Bart) now gets plutonium poisoning at the start instead of being shot to death by Libyan terrorists — the show is beat-for-beat the same plot as the film up until a more neatly wrapped-up ending.

Marty McFly (Likes) is still a high school-hating rebel whose geeky father George (Hugh Coles) has grown into a sad-sack disappointment that’s constantly tormented by his bully boss Biff (Nathaniel Hackman).