Blast from the Past

In Encino Man Brendan Fraser played a caveman who got thawed out by Pauly Shore. In Blast from the Past he plays a 35-year-old Opie who pops up in the middle of Los Angeles after spending his entire life underground in a bomb shelter -- the result of his parents' paranoid reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fraser's Adam is armed for the modern world with a pile of IBM stock certificates, a few Mickey Mantle baseball cards, and some killer moves on the dance floor, but all that isn't enough to win over Alicia Silverstone's Valley girl -- at least not initially.

Fraser continues to demonstrate an undeniable knack for physical comedy, and Silverstone ups her bankability after that disaster known as Excess Baggage, but the film's true charms are the indelible bit players. Sissy Spacek and Christopher Walken (the king of creepy cool) are uproarious as Fraser's Ozzie-and-Harriet parents, and Dave Foley is devilishly wry as Silverstone's gay roommate. Perry Como even comes off as a cool guy. This concoction of cheesy layers is hokum of the most delightful kind.

-- Tom Meek