Back to the 90s is a story of friendship, self-discovery, and incredible music. Directed by Facundo Scalerandi and written by Marian Grönwoldt, Juliana Lima Dehne, and Joy C. Mitchell, it is the most unexpected sort of time travel story. It’s a German-language film, but because of the music, English-speaking audiences will feel comfortable with it right off the bat.
The story revolves around 5G, a struggling modern boy band played by real-life internet sensations, The Elevator Boys. They’re students at Heartville University, preparing for a pretty major showcase that will give their college world a taste of their musical talents. But they have a major disagreement in an elevator, and it hurls the group back in time to ancient history – 1995. And it turns out the only way they can get home is to recreate the exact moment of their initial time travel, complete with a mysterious, catchy 90s song playing. One wrinkle, however, complicates it all. Because they’re in 1995, their cell phones don’t work. They can’t just pull up the song clip and pop back in the elevator to go home. The group goes on a quest to find out the mysterious original authors of the song, so that they can get a physical cassette and get home the analog way. And like any good quest or 90s comedy, there are complications and romantic entanglements.
There’s even a cheeky moment in the film where one of the lead boy banders notes that everyone in 1995 looks so much older. This is a nod to past high school movies and shows (cue up the 30 Rock, Steve Buscemi fellow kids meme). In a way, it also fits 5G because these young actors look so much older than the college-age characters they’re supposed to be portraying. Jacob Rott, Luis Freitag, Tim Schäcker, Julian Braun, and Bene Schulz prove that sometimes internet stars do have the chops to make it on the big screen. The charming group of friends has earned our leniency in this regard.
There are some interesting choices with the cinematography that distract from the story. At times, it feels like this was filmed through a Vaseline-coated lens. It’s gauzy and hazy. While this is clearly a stylistic choice meant to enhance the otherness of the time period that they were visiting, the heavy-handed use smears the frame and makes it hard to enjoy the on-screen action.
There are also a few plot threads that are just fully dropped. We never get a satisfying resolution on Daniel, the elevator’s original victim. And there are pesky butterfly-effect things that are now in the changed timeline that we don’t see or address. But the story and charisma of these young men are so much that we can ignore these issues in Back to the 90s. We’re not watching this film for a magnum opus on time travel; we’re just in it to have a good time. And Back to the 90s delivers there.
The ending is supremely satisfying – not only because of who Mrs. Robinson turns out to be, but because of how utterly delightful the song that 5G performs in the showcase is. The closing song ‘1995’ feels so authentic to the boy band era. Tight choreography sells the delusion, and the whole performance cues up all the nostalgia in this geriatric millennial’s lizard brain.
Back to the 90s is now streaming on Prime Video.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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