Bill De Lapp,
Syracuse NY New Times
2/12/99


Blast From the Past. (New Line; 112 minutes; PG-13). New Line's second retro-comedy after last fall's Pleasantville is this slice of nutty nostalgia sandwiched between examples of modern-day millennial madness, and handled with sufficient sitcom savvy by TV veteran Hugh Wilson (WKRP in Cincinnati) to put over its high-concept plot.

Wilson co-wrote this revamp of Back to the Future with Bill Kelly, which opens during the "duck and cover" generation of 1962 at a Los Angeles house party held by scientist Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken) and his preggies spouse Helen (Sissy Spacek). When "that trouble down in Cuba" heats up as President John F. Kennedy makes his fateful Bay of Pigs speech, the Webbers bid adieu to their guests and hightail it into their lavish underground fallout shelter--just seconds before a troubled aircraft accidentally crash-lands into their back yard. Mistaking the plane's explosion for the idea that the commies have already nuked the neighborhood, Calvin sets the shelter's timed locks for 35 years hence, a time when the fear of radioactive afterlife should have passed.

Meanwhile, the Webbers become the proud parents of son Adam (played as an adult by Brendan Fraser), who gets a dose of 1960s family values and lessons in gentlemanly etiquette within his hermetically sealed environment. But when those locks finally open and Adam must venture onto the surface to replenish the shelter's dwindling supplies of food, drink and yacht batteries (dad thinks morally depraved mutants are roving the earth, so he would rather stay down below), Adam needs the help of a street-smart LA cutie named Eve (Alicia Silverstone) to make sense of this brave new world.

Blast From the Past's first 25 minutes are a low-key hoot to savor. Wilson derives imaginative wit from his detailed overview of 1960s suburbia (lots of martinis, cigarette smoke and bad jokes during the party scene), as well as his conception of the shelter's creature comforts, which range from visuals of hot Dr Pepper to Calvin's kinescope of a Honeymooners rerun ("People will never get tired of watching these," he chortles) to a loving recreation of the Webbers' backyard patio--albeit minus any sun, moon or sky, of course. There's also the clever gimmick of depicting an always-changing business establishment that rests on the surface above the Webbers' shelter to demonstrate the passage of time, as a 1960s malt shop transmogrifies into a disco club in the 1970s and a heavy-metal bar in the 1980s.

The bulk of Blast From the Past's comedy stems from the traditional time-warped conventions, with everything old getting recycled and becoming new again. This entails Adam stealing the show with two nightclub cuties during a swing-dance number (songs by the Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Squirrel Nut Zippers pop up on the soundtrack, naturally), while Eve hopelessly falls in love with Adam's innocent charmer simply because society doesn't make caring hunks like that anymore. Still, this romantic relationship works to our satisfaction because the performers are so likable and sincere.

Alicia Silverstone, away from movie screens since her 1997 double whammy misfires with Batman & Robin and Excess Baggage, seems to have matured during her absence to play Blast's cute yet convincing tough cookie who's unsure about love. As for Brendan Fraser, he's created a healthy film career out of playing good-natured boneheads, including Encino Man, George of the Jungle and his upcoming lead in director Wilson's live-action Dudley Do-Right. Yet his comic timing can transform good bits into great ones: His Adam blurts out, "My stars, a Negro!" when he sees his first African-American, for instance, while another nifty moment occurs when he's in Eve's car and happily grooving to a radio station playing an old Perry Como tune ("Listen to it...this is where it really takes off!" Adam enthuses).

Wilson is also wise enough to let the key supporting cast members run with the material to get the most out of their stereotypes. Sissy Spacek slyly charts the mental disintegration of her June Cleaver-styled supermom, and she earns lots of laughs when mama Helen quietly goes Carrie on herself in retaliation of her fallout imprisonment and turns to covertly coveting alcohol to get through it all. Christopher Walken's screw-loose genius dad is a shrewd replica of every crew-cut, pocket-protector science teacher who's ever walked this earth; when Adam says that he'd one day like to bring a girl home to meet his parents, Calvin chimes in with, "One who doesn't glow in the dark, I hope." Perhaps most politically incorrect is NewsRadio's Dave Foley as Eve's homosexual pal Troy, a gay cliché who in the old days would surely have been an interior decorator--but for Blast has been upgraded to Web designer. Yet Foley's performance is so comically exaggerated, right down to his mincing speech and limp-wristed actions, that he surprisingly becomes more endearing than expected.

Wilson's main problem is one of length; Blast is at least 10 minutes longer than it should be, thus flattening the amusement toward the end. Yet just about every other movie these days has also been cursed by lax editing methods, so this is obviously an industry-wide dilemma that needs to be addressed soon. Nevertheless, Blast From the Past emerges as silly fun most of the way, a belated Cold War spoof that mines welcome humor from our hysteria-laden history.