BLAST FROM THE PAST (1999)
Rating: 7/10 Stars Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken, Dave Foley & Sissy Spacek Directed by Hugh Wilson
While watching "Blast from the Past", a song by trip-hop maestro Tricky came to mind: "Brand New, You're Retro". Things end up being too much retro, too little new, though Blast remains an enjoyable, if familiar, fish out of water tale.
Blast opens with a poorly-conceived credit sequence in which we see a newspaper montage as the classic "Accentuate the Positive" plays. It's a great song, and a great opening... except that we've seen this before, notably in one of 1997's best films, "L.A. Confidential", and in the sadly defunt ABC series, "Homefront".
Fortunately, things pick up from there, as we're introduced to paranoid husband Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken) and his pregnant wife Helen (Sissy Spacek). Heading into their state-of-the-art bomb shelter as Kennedy lashes out against Cuba on tv, they're startled as a fighter jet on routine manuevers has engine trouble and crashes into their house. Mistaking this for "the big one", Walken hurriedly slams the locks, sealing them in for thirty-five years, the amount of time it will take for the radiation to clear. A few days later, their son -- appropriately, predictably named Adam -- is born, and the movie spends nearly a third of its time showing us vignettes from Adam's child- and eventually adult-hood.
We finally get to the main part of the story just after Adam's thirty-fifth birthday. Dad has broken the seal and gone to the surface to see how the recovery is going, and is dumbfounded at the "mutants" he encounters: transvestite hookers, drunken bums, and gang bangers. (Hookers & bums & guns, oh my!) Safe underground again, he decides that they should wait another ten years before attempting to return to the surface.
But there's a problem: they're running out of supplies. After Dad has an attack (heart, anxiety or panic, it's never made clear), it's up to Adam to go out for food, batteries... and perhaps a wife. Enter Eve (Silverstone) & Troy (Foley) as that '90's staple, the bombshell with the gay best friend ("My Best Friend's Wedding", tv's "Will & Grace", etc.).
What follows is fairly entertaining, though wholly predictable. It's never in doubt that the square Adam will turn out to be the hippest guy on the dance floor (both in a swing club number and in the funniest YMCA bit since "Wayne's World"), or that Adam will fall for Eve (duh), or that Adam will ultimately find his cloistered world to be preferable in many ways to Eve's world. (It's like an odd role reversal on H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine": Adam is the bright & sunny Eloi, while most of the surface-dwellers come across as hideous, mutated Morlocks.)
The performances are solid all-around, especially Fraser who wipes out any doubts about his ability to carry a film. Though obviously not up to par with his masterful performance in "Gods & Monsters", Fraser here demonstrates an incredible screen presence, dominating his every scene, even when paired with veterans like Walken & Spacek. This won't be the film that makes him a mega-star, but it's a step in the right direction, and bodes well for his next, "The Mummy", due out May 7th.
Blast treads some of the same ground as another New Line Cinema project, last fall's "Pleasantville", but doesn't bother itself with any seriousness or social commentary; Blast is a comedy, and knows it.
What it doesn't know is when to quit, overstaying it's welcome by about ten minutes. We've been entertained, and are ready for the film to be over, and it just keeps going. The finale draws out far too long, though it might not have mattered had the entire film been tightened up a bit. Many of the scenes with young Adam aren't necessary, and a continuing sub-plot featuring Joey Slotnick as a bar owner turned cult leader could have been excised with virtually no impact on the narrative.
Also, the film isn't quite sure when it takes place. Pointedly starting in 1962 in the thick of the Cuban missle crisis, it then abandons concrete dates in favor of the nebulous "The Present Day". Fine, except that Adam later tells us that he's 35, meaning the action takes place in 1997... which is not the present day. A minor point, to be sure, but this coupled with the draggy pacing suggests the need for a more hands-on producer. Blast ain't bad, but it could've been far better.
"Blast from the Past" runs approximately 1:45, and is rated PG-13, presumably for the few scenes of '90's nastiness we're exposed to.
Tom
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