BLAST FROM THE PAST
A movie review by Joe Barlow
(c) Copyright 1999
STARRING: Brandan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher
Walken, Sissy Spacek
DIRECTOR: Hugh Wilson
WRITER: Bill Kelly
RATED: PG-13
RELEASED: 1999
RATING: ** (out of a possible ****)
"Blast From the Past" is the sort of film which makes me pine for the bygone days of Hollywood, when studio-made comedies were actually funny-- when wit and creativity, rather than pratfalls and profanity, were the ingredients of laughter. "Blast From the Past" isn't the worst IQ offender I've seen in recent months, although it may be the most disheartening; after all, if a director is able to assemble such a first-rate cast, why can't he give them a more interesting story to tell? Or at the very least, a more interesting way in which to tell it?
The tale itself certainly had potential. In 1962, as the Cold War continues to drag on, devoted family man Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken) builds a luxurious, self-sustaining fallout shelter beneath his modest California home. When the Cuban Missile Crisis hits its apex, Calvin whisks his pregnant wife Helen (Sissy Spacek) into the ground. At that moment, a plane crashes into their house. Calvin, detecting the flames and heat outside the shelter door, naturally assumes that a nuclear bomb has been dropped on the town. Since the half-life of nuclear fallout is thirty-five years, the couple begin their long wait... unaware that the world above is perfectly habitable.
Their son Adam is born almost immediately. Lovingly raised in this closed society and governed by his parents' 1962 morals and values, of which placing one's elbows on the dinner table is the severest offense, Adam eventually grows into an intelligent, polite young man (played by Brandan Fraser), who, although happy, feels a sense of longing and loneliness. On his thirty-fifth birthday, he admits to his mother that he's been thinking about girls "just these last fifteen years or so." And with these words, Adam is sent out into the great big world to find his fortune.
The problems begin with the story's pacing. The film's first-act is excruciatingly slow, due to the unnecessary amount of exposition it thrusts upon us at the outset; indeed, Brandan Fraser, the star of film, doesn't appear until nearly 30 minutes into the tale. And the second-billed Alicia Silverstone, who plays an unpleasant and unlikeable young woman named Eve (the tale's requisite love interest), doesn't appear until nearly a half-hour beyond *that*.
Although Adam's adventures and interactions are occasionally amusing, the story focuses on the wrong thing. Rather than giving us insight into what he must be going through psychologically, the film repeatedly tosses cheap gags at the audience. (An example: Adam has never heard a certain four-letter expletive before, so his dad helpfully explains that it's an archaic French word meaning "good." Immediately we know that Adam will misunderstand and misuse this word... not just once, but over and over.)
There are a couple of excellent moments, where Adam sees the sky (and later, the ocean) for the first time; his sense of joy and wonder are contagious in these scenes. Had the film concentrated more on his feelings and experiences rather than lame humor, it might have been something special. But these details are glossed over: we don't feel a sense of awe when Adam meets another human being for the first time. After he gets lost in the big city, we don't feel any sense of panic or terror from him. And when he sleeps at a hotel for the first time, why don't we get a better sense of what he's feeling? After all, this is his first night away from home! (In its defense, the film does mention this... but then it immediately cuts to a scene required by the uninteresting romance subplot, rendering Adam's emotions invalid.)
The names of the characters (Adam and Eve) effectively remove any suspicion about whether they will fall in love by the end of the movie (and in case you miss it, one minor character makes an observation that Adam's new home resembles "the Garden of Eden"). But even without these clues, the romance is foreordained: the film possesses neither the sense of daring or originality needed to deviate from trite formula; therefore, no matter how obvious it is to us that Eve is completely wrong for Adam, she will eventually fall for the big lug. Cue the "happily ever after" music.
"Blast From the Past" does succeed in generating a few laughs, thanks to Fraser's effortless performance as Adam. (Fraser has experience playing amiable goofballs, including the title role in Disney's "George of the Jungle.") His effervescent charm is enough to make the movie bearable, but only just. That the film is as entertaining as it despite its horrid screenplay is a powerful testament to Fraser's screen presence. The always entertaining Christopher Walken gives a fun turn as Adam's quirky but well-meaning father. But Sissy Spacek feels miscast: at no time does she seem like anything more than basic window dressing. Come to think of it, that criticism could be leveled at the entire film.
It's a shame that this story wasn't handled with more care, as it could've been fascinating. A character study about a family shut off from society for over three decades has the potential for both humor and drama, though both are sacrificed here for a formula romance that's neither involving or convincing. This story deserved better.
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