BLAST FROM THE PAST

Directed by Hugh Wilson

Starring Brendan Fraser, Alicia

Silverstone

New Line Cinema

What comes to mind when you hear the title, Blast From the Past? It smells of a big budget movie for dodos and bratty kids. And the movie is exactly that, but, stupid or not, it does have moments that would make it a fleetingly entertaining TV sitcom.

The movie's promoters advertise the story as a romantic, fish-out-of-the-water comedy. In 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an eccentric scientist Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken) and his expectant wife (Sissy Spacek) decide to enter their fallout shelter for just a week or two. But an airplane crashes into their house above, they mistake its rumbles for a bomb, and they end up staying in the underground lair for 35 years. In 1997, Calvin and his wife decide they need to refuel on supplies and send Adam, their born-in-captivity son (Brendan Fraser), outside to bring home a non-mutant, Pasadena girl for breeding purposes. He meets Eve (Alicia Silverstone) and begs her to help him. And so the story goes about manchild Adam's mission to find a wife.

The scientific logic is silly and annoying, but since the movie's premise is already ridiculous--who cares? The first part of the movie is carried by Spacek and Walken. With his pasty face and taped-up glasses, Walken skillfully combines the roles of the paranoid scientist and conservative father. His brief foray into the world of hookers and porn shops is a scream. Spacek is convincing as a perky housewife with secret drunken tendencies and a potential for a nervous breakdown. When they rejoice, they do the twist. Fortunately for the movie, they know when to perk up their Ozzie and Harriet act, and when to tone down as real people.

Calvin's underground house is a wonder itself, with a huge fishpond, fake outdoors patio and early 60s kitsch. Plus, it boasts a stockroom so big that the mother can still push around a shopping cart. Buildings seem to be catchy way to describe the changing times. Spacek bakes pot roasts in a peaceful, tidy home. Above, Mom's Malt Shop sprouts up in place of the Webbers' old house and gradually devolves into a filthy hangout for druggies in the 90's.

This prelude is gently amusing, but Blast goes downhill once Adam steps into the real world for a journey that forms the heart of the story. Blast becomes too self-conscious about delivering cliched messages: 1) A lot can change over a few decades; 2) we should appreciate the beautiful world around us; and 3) chicks dig good manners.

To help us understand the deep content of the movie, director/producer/co-writer Hugh Wilson (First Wives Club) decides to simplify everything. According to Blast, 1962 is no match for 1997's fast lane. The vast differences are represented by Brendan Fraser's wide-eyed Adam and Alicia Silverstone's street-wise Eve, the names being yet another insult to our intelligence.

Fraser's persistent perkiness can be either endearing or unnatural. Did all kids back then talk with a chipper lilt like Jay North's in "Dennis the Menace?" Other than that, Fraser is at ease as Adam the man-child 60's freak. After all, he's had plenty of practice playing the misfit in Encino Man and George of the Jungle.

On the other hand, one thing is very hard to ignore: Alicia Silverstone. No, guys, I'm not talking about her looks. I'm talking about her acting. As Adam's love interest, Eve is supposed to be a cynical woman disillusioned by love. Unfortunately, the only technique Silverstone has mastered is the "whine" of her Cher days. Whether she's sad, mad or emotionless, she whines (or looks like she wants to whine). In trying to appear cynical, Silverstone has refrained from acting. Her hair, done in child-like ringlets, is out of place for her world-weary character.

The zero-chemistry courtship between Fraser and Silverstone prompts nausea. The film would have been better with less emphasis on their inevitable romance. The director attempts to uplift us with a scene depicting Adam's first sight of the ocean, but cheesy orchestral music coupled with shots of Silverstone's blank reaction basically kill the moment.

Besides the attempt to be a meaningful movie, Blast often contains sight gags that are absolutely hilarious. Take note of Joey Slotnick ("The Single Guy") as the bum who mistakes Calvin Webber for the messiah. As Eve's gay confidante, Dave Foley ("NewsRadio") elicits chuckles with his sympathetic demeanor and sharp tongue.

These details may individually entertain, but the big picture, cheesy and overbaked, cements its place in the mindless movie category.