Blast From the Past

Blast from the Past, a fish-out-of-water romantic comedy, begins in 1962, where a highly paranoid scientist (Christopher Walken) and his wife (Sissy Spacek) time-lock themselves in a fallout shelter when the Cuban Missile Crisis threatens to turn the Cold War hot. Thirty-five years later the shelter's door opens, and their now-grown son Adam (Brendan Fraser) emerges into the outside world for the first time, expecting to find a post-nuclear wasteland. A sensible filmmaker would have realized that life in the shelter was the story's background rather than the story itself, but director Hugh Wilson takes 35 minutes to track those 35 years, wasting valuable time before sending naïf Adam into the real world to cope and meet romantic interest Eve (Alicia Silverstone). The film does have its charms : Fraser's goofy kid grin on his big lug frame, Dave Foley's zesty rendering of the cliched gay best pal, and some cute romantic moments. Still, it shouldn't have been so hard to reasonably well execute so simple a premise. Not recommended. (S. Renshaw)