Blast from the Past (1999)

A crashed plane is mistaken for a nuclear bomb explosion by an eccentric inventor and his family. In their attempts to get away before the world explodes, they go underground in their massive bomb shelter for 35 years. After the inventor has a mild heart attack, his son Adam must venture out into modern-day Los Angeles to search for food, supplies and a non-mutant wife. While there he runs into Eve (ha ha! get it? Adam and Eve!!) who reluctantly helps the odd young man gather what he needs.

Wholly contrived and simple-minded comedy that barely passes for entertainment due to the likable characters and Frasier’s endearing performance. It was a bad idea, given hokey and jokey (but rarely funny) treatment and is thinly held together by a series of tedious moments whereby Adam becomes confused by the ways of a more mature world than the “sheltered” one he comes from. The basic premise is almost the exact opposite of the far superior film PLEASANTVILLE, and might have worked if they had just a smidgen of the originality shown in that one. What’s left here is a limp but relatively benign time-waster that earns what little it has going for it though the charm of its stars and little else.

Qwipster’s rating: C

MPAA Rated: PG-13 for brief language, sex and drug references
Running Time: 112 min.

Cast: Brendan Frasier, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken, Sissy Spacek, Dave Foley
Director: Bill Kelly
Screenplay: Bill Kelly, Hugh Wilson