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Coasting on the successes of Gods and Monsters and George of the Jungle, Brendan Fraser turns in yet another winning performance in this fish-out-of-water comedy in which Pleasantville meets modern-day Los Angeles, with predictably funny results. Fraser stars as Adam, who was born in the bomb shelter of his paranoid inventor dad (a less-manic-than-usual Christopher Walken), who spirited his pregnant wife (Sissy Spacek, in fine comic form) underground when he thought the Communists dropped the bomb (actually, it was a plane crash). Armed with enough supplies to last 35 years, the parents bring up Adam in Leave It to Beaver style with nary any exposure to the outside world. When the supplies run out, and dad suffers a heart attack, Fraser goes up to modern-day L.A. for some shopping and long-awaited culture shock. More of a cute premise with lots of clever ideas attached than a fully fleshed out story, Blast from the Past is also supposed to be part romantic comedy, as the hunky Adam hooks up with his jaded Eve (Alicia Silverstone) and tries to convince her to marry him and go underground. The sparks don't fly, though, because Silverstone is saddled with the triple whammy of being miscast, playing an underwritten character, and suffering a very bad hairdo. Fraser, however, carries the film lightly and easily on his broad, goofy shoulders, mixing Adam's gee-whiz innocence with genuine emotion and curiosity; only Fraser could pull off Adam's first glimpse of a sunrise or the ocean with both humor and pathos. Also winning is Dave Foley as Silverstone's gay best friend, who manages to make the most innocuous statements sound like comic gems. --Mark Englehart
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
BEAVER REDUX,
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This review is from: Blast from the Past (Full Screen) (DVD)
Brendan Fraser is remarkably good in this good-natured comedy about a young man born and raised in a fallout shelter. Fraser manages to parlay his rugged good looks and youthful exuberance into an intensely likeable hero named Adam. Once released into the modern world, Adam is gleefully joyful to watch. Alicia Silverstone is fine as his "Eve" who is both enamored and repelled by Fraser's childishly kind behavior. Dave Foley as her gay friend is marvelous as well. I also liked Joey Skolnik as the bartender who metamorphoses from a happy teenager to the self-proclaimed monk of a new religion. Kudos also to Nathan Killion (Firefly series) as Alicia's macho boyfriend who gets put in his place by Fraser. Also to the delightful dance scene where Fraser and two girls jitterbug to high heaven. But one cannot overlook the truly marvelous performances from Sissy Spacek and Christopher Walken as Fraser's paranoid parents. They are both brilliant, and one can see how these two won Oscars for previous performances. Director Hugh Wilson keeps it all together and I found myself smiling and chuckling all the way through. A delightful find!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, Witty and Extremely Likeable Comic Fantasy,
By
This review is from: Blast from the Past (Full Screen) (DVD)
Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken) is a slightly mad genius living in Los Angeles at the height of the Cold War. Paranoid about the communist threat, he has made a vast and elaborate nuclear bunker under his house. And, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he takes the precaution of going into it with his pregnant wife Helen (Sissy Spacek). By bizarre coincidence, just as they get down underground, a military aircraft crashes on their house. Convinced this is the dreaded nuke, he locks in and they prepare to stay there for 35 years until the radiation reaches safe levels. Finally come the 1990s and son Adam (Brendan Fraser) is sent out to reconnoitre and get look for fresh supplies in what they are convinced is a nightmarish and disintegrated post-apocalyptic world. (The neighbour has gone badly downhill in a way that makes this a more than understandable mistake.) Out he goes armed only with an indefatigable innocence and decency, an unshakable conviction that Perry Como is at the cutting edge of popular music and what he does not yet realize is a huge fortune in vintage baseball cards. After a few hours he is seriously at sea and hopelessly lost. Then he meets Alicia Silverstone's wordly and cynical Eve...The central conceit of this film is the clash of what is basically a 1950s sensibility with the harsh and cynical realities of 1990s America. That way it strongly recalls 'Pleasantville', made a year earlier. But this is a much better film. While 'Pleasantville' rather condescended to the past, with its knowing modern kids teaching stuffy old 50s types how to be cool and have sex, this film is much more intelligently ambivalent about the blessings of modernity and has a very nice satirical edge. Not to mention much funnier. It is Eve who learns from Adam far more than the reverse. It's essentially an unusual romantic comedy with a bizarre fantasy premise. But it's an unusually sharp, witty and unintelligent romcom. A certain mismatch between British and American senses of humour may partly explain why I seldom laugh out loud at American movies. Several lines in this were notable exceptions. Its best moments recall, as very very few contemporary films manage to recall, the sharply observed intelligence of the great Hollywood romantic comedies of the 30s and 40s. Fresh, entertaining and extremely well-acted, it's well worth a look.
5.0 out of 5 stars
blast from the past,
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