Is there a recent Broadway musical that stalls on the music as badly as “Back to the Future: The Musical”?

Newly arrived at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for a 10-day run, this rev-up of the popular ‘80s movie ultimately spins its wheels due to its mundane score.

Characters major and minor are saddled with largely unmemorable tunes. Unhappily, the 17 original wan songs mostly add up to a dampening swan song for the proceedings.

Wedged into the film’s familiar story — same entertaining 1985 to 1955 time-travel plotline; same agreeable period characters; an even more enjoyable on-stage DeLorean — the generic songwriting bloats the crisp couple-hour tale into a lumpy 2 ½-hours.

Only the film’s familiar anthem, Huey Lewis and the News’ “The Power of Love,” now relocated as the show’s big finish, pays off musically … proof, if nothing else, of the power of nostalgia.

Nostalgia can certainly add up to box office power.

The opening night audience packing Segerstrom Hall seemed happy enough, with loud whoops of excitement from the upper seats whenever there was a sight of the car.

The time-traveling DeLorean is the evening’s not-so-stealthy star.

Early in the first act, the realistic looking vehicle materializes from billowing smoke, pivoting to a side view with all its “flux capacitor” lighting in full ooh and aah visual glory.

There’s further theater magic in place getting the car up to the required 88 mph to cross the time-space continuum needed to go back and forth in time.

Here, the show generates true momentum as the DeLorean is more captivating in a live theater than in the movie. Bathed in whiz-bang effects, digital screens, glitzy illumination and amplified sound provide deft visceral energy.

With a couple exceptions, the performance levels don’t ultimately match up to the pyrotechnics.

The dominant role in the musical version is scatterbrained mad scientist Doc Brown. In the movie, talented Christopher Lloyd fashioned Doc into a character with ditzy charm.

On board here is Broadway veteran Don Stephenson, a broad enough performer to drive the production, often relying on a ditch of over-the top schtick and muggy facial tics.

Stephenson is also saddled with the show’s lowest moment, a baffling up tempo production number called “21st Century.” Opening the second act, it weirdly features a chorine kick line wearing outlandish costumes from a future nobody wants to visit.

As young Marty McFly, comically and desperately employing time travel to guarantee that his family’s future won’t be physically erased, Caden Brauch is a looks-enough-alike for Michael J. Fox, especially when swaddled in the omnipresent burnt orange puffy vest straight from the movie.

If not a strong comic presence, Brauch is athletic enough to navigate the physicality of the role, as well as dodging the Oedipal emotional challenges when he encounters his mother Lorraine — nicely played by Zan Berube — in her hot teenage girl iteration.

In the movie, Crispin Glover’s treatment of Marty’s gawky/geeky father George was almost painful to watch, but with acting alchemy Burke Swanson makes this George emotionally relatable, with sweetness, yearning and a faint glimmer of hope projected to the fore.

During the number “Put Your Mind to It,” Swanson’s controlled physical movements are like some internalized choreography of a character’s soul blossoming on display.

On opening night, outside the hall by the Segerstrom carriage circle, five DeLorean’s were lovingly parked on display, earning plenty of universal pre-show attention and admiration.

Wish the same could be said about the vehicle parked inside.