Interstate 60 is written and directed by Bob Gale, creator of the Back to the Future trilogy, and it attempts to cash in on the wide affection for those movies by explicity associating itself with them - a fantastical storyline, ‘zany’ tone, and parts for both Christopher Loyd and Michael J Fox. But making this link only serves to emphasise Interstate 60’s own shortcomings. With none of Back to the Future’s imaginative energy, this is a lazy, meandering, silly excuse for a film.
Neal Oliver (James Marsden) is 22 and wants to be an artist; his dad, surprisingly enough, wants him to be a lawyer. He meets O.W.Grant (a punchably smug and incredibly hammy Gary Oldman, puffing on a pipe carved into the head of a monkey, complete with glowing red eyes and belching green smoke) who grants him one wish. Oliver wishes for “an answer”, and so begins a road trip down a highway that doesn’t exist, littered with one-note characters, where fantastical things happen and he eventually finds himself and, literally, the girl of his dreams. Grant spouts some cod parallel worlds hokum, but essentially the plot is contrived so as to allow Gale to toss in a load of easy fairytale clichés, from people who foolishly squander their wish to the true-love-and-follow-your-dreams morality. This might all be knowing parody, but it’s so self-satisfied, dumb and irritating, that no-one is likely to care.
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