Review: Blast from the Past (1999)

Blast from the Past

I suppose people who wear rose-tinted glasses see the world in shades of pink, as pink as the fabrics that covered the walls and chairs of American houses in Life magazine ads, circa 1960. Yes, pink is the color of nostalgia.

And we are reminded of the importance of nostalgia by Hugh Wilson's 'Blast from the Past'. Its story begins outside of Los Angeles in a neighborhood of picture-perfect tract houses. Professor Calvin Weber (Christopher Walken) is an eccentric and rich scientist who has secretly built a fallout shelter large enough to contain a replica of his house. As the Cuban missile crisis reaches its worst moments and nuclear war seems imminent, Dr. Weber drags his pregnant wife (Sissy Spacek) down into the shelter, which is equipped to sustain a family of three for 35 years. The plot gimmick that causes the family to stay underground for the entire time is a plane crash: just as the Webers are safe in the shelter, a military plane plows into the back yard, and the bespectacled schlump sets the irreversible locks. Convinced a holocaust has destroyed the city and perhaps the greater part of the world, the Webers recreate a polite and perfect microcosm with their new son Adam (Brendan Fraser, when the boy reaches adulthood).

Of course we have seen all this before. Think of Marty McFly in reverse, transported into the future. Even Brendan Fraser has been there, in 'Encino Man' and, in the same fish-out-of-water sense, 'George of the Jungle' (itself a text from the 1960's). But the filmmakers know how we love to gaze longingly at our history. In its own way, the film manages to serve as a history lesson, imparting a good deal of cultural as well as political knowledge. What is puzzling about fondness for the past is the blind faith that those years were better than these, that people were happier, in every important way, than we are.(It's ironic that we would look through those lenses of distorting pinkness at a time that engendered a near-nuclear confrontation.) Yet the formula works, and 'Blast from the Past' supplies us with laughs and a romantic relationship that is at times witty and original. When Adam must venture into what he thinks is a post-nuclear, mutated world, he takes up with a rather rootless woman (Alicia Silverstone), who is conscious of her lack of depth, but who is also oddly principled.

Brendan Fraser turns in a solid performance as the walking anachronism. Indeed the movie milks his out-of-place experiences for all it can; Fraser for the most part plays along with a dry and naïve humor, though at times he does look blank or even stunned. We know that his character is in love with Alicia Silverstone's Eve, but he is simply too polite and mild to pursue her affections meaningfully. Fraser is at his best when Adam shows sudden inspired bits of accomplishment - when he speaks French and later swing-dances skillfully at a dance club. He's likable all the time, but especially when he displays his tenderness toward his parents and his would-be girlfriend.

Alicia Silverstone is very watchable as well, although our early impressions of Eve approach a stereotype: she's the cynical and spoiled girl-woman, street-smart and smart-mouthed, a darker version of the shallow Cher from 'Clueless.' Why is her performance good? Because Silverstone knows her way around the camera, seeming very comfortable and assured as she commands Adam's attention during the ups and downs of their relationship. This young actress has denounced phoniness in her everyday life, and seems to be applying the same credo to her acting.

Christopher Walken can appear in any movie I pay for, especially in his quirky characterizations. We care about Calvin Weber the loving father and husband, and we're willing to laugh at his paranoid, commie-hating craziness. Sissy Spacek is underused, but in her short scenes dominates in the dry humor department. Mrs. Weber walks outside the "house" to scream, and imbibes the cooking sherry in her advertisement-perfect kitchen.

Set design is tricky in this film. Most memorable is the interior decoration of the Webers' houses, both above and below the ground, meccas of post-war pastel luxuries, kitchens full of wondrous modern appliances, living rooms packed with fringed furniture. A hilarious sight gag involves the land above the fallout shelter, a block that undergoes massive change in the decades following the plane crash. Directly above the Webers' elevator are a sleazy bar and its owner, who thinks the beings crashing through his floor are three incarnations of supreme beings. The mantra the grungy bar owner adopts is "Leave my elevator alone," and his cult of the homeless in one of the funnier running gags.

The score brims with period songs, the rhythm of the vintage music helping to move the narrative along. Over the closing credits we hear a song by written and sung by Randy Newman, a piece of cutesy doggerel relating to the film's premise. Aren't we getting a bit over-exposed, Randy?

'Blast from the Past' is certainly a good date movie, and it has enough laughs to recommend it for theater viewing. Unfortunately it has one 'f-word' and a slew of 's-word' jokes, as well as a few seconds of the characters' visiting adult video stores: hence the PG-13 rating. Why, Mr. Wilson, couldn't a few seconds be excised in pursuit of a plain PG? It's not a must-see, but it is a pleasant way to pass two hours, the haze of nostalgia simmering like dry ice along the theater floor.