Blast from the Past 1999

[7.0/10] The ironic thing about Blast from the Past to the modern eye is the way it aims to open up a time capsule of the 1960s, and contrast the attendant vibes and values from that time with those of the film’s 1990s setting. And yet, while the current decade is not an equally-spaced thirty-five years away from the film’s release, the movie itself feels a little like a time capsule of 1990s style and sensibilities that unintentionally says as much about that time period as it does about Cold War era America.

That is, probably, giving this silly comedy a tad too much credit. Blast from the Past is mainly a pleasing, occasionally baffling serving of empty calories. It doesn't actually have much to say beyond it’s low-level subtext that, by gosh, the ragged nineties could use a little more of that sixties decency and kindness. That is, frankly, a pretty myopic view of things, with its own problematic baggage. But it passes muster in a movie that uses its premise, its theme, and its romance as little more than a thin excuse to throw its characters into wacky hijinks.

That in and of itself is telling. This movie feels of a piece with other studio comedies at the time which rely on outlandish setups, but don’t really dig into them beyond providing a backdrop for the stars du jour to do their thing. Make no mistake, with Everclear needledrops, a sassy gay friend who’s a website designer, and an unnecessary dance scene in the middle of the film, this movie is about as nineties as it gets. But most of that is set dressing to let Brendan Fraser and company ply some of their usual shtick in this absurd and occasionally hacky setup.

It kind of works! Fraser plays the main character, Adam, a young man raised in a fallout shelter for thirty-five years by his 1960s nuclear family ma and pa, then sent into the world with where his “aw shucks” Kennedy-era demeanor meets a “whatever man” 1990s world. It’s only Fraser’s charm and sincerity through that bonkers plot that holds this thing together. He brings a Jason Segel-like boyish charm, a Jim Carey-like physicality, and a Will Ferrell in Elf-like earnestness to the picture which allows such a nutty concept to work.

The other supporting performers help keep the movie afloat too. Despite being saddled with a generic gay friend role, Dave Foley nearly steals the show with his reactions and comic asides. For the first fifteen-to-twenty minutes, the movie basically belongs to Sissy Spacek and Christopher Walken, who play Adam’s parents. The former’s drunken resignation and the latter’s goofy self-certainty make some of the episode’s sillier moments play better than they have any right to.

Unfortunately it’s not all sunshine and roses in the performer department. Blast from the Past is saddled with an off-the-shelf nineties romance between strait-laced Adam and his love interest, Eve (DO YOU GET IT?!?!). Eve is what passes for rough around the edges in safe studio comedies, with a self-professed shallowness and inability to hold down a job, while still putting on the “conman with a heart of gold” routine and never seeming to actually face any real adversity or bad choices.

Some of that could be excused if, well, Alicia Silverstone was any good in the role. There’s moments where she does a lot of acting, but little of it’s good. In fairness, the role is a poorly-written one and the movie is over the top. But more often than not, the film puts her opposite Fraser, Foley, or both, and the contrast between the performers who can elevate the material and those who sink below is apparent. Silverstone’s rarely convincing and seems to think that delivering each line and emotion with the same whiny quasi-urgency is what’s called for here.

It doesn't really matter though, since the romance at the center of the film is preordained rather than earned and has its share of problems from the standpoint of the message the movie seems to want to send. Adam and Eve feel attraction, have their inevitable break-up, and just as required reconciliation in the span of about a week, which doesn't even count the fact that it happens over the course of roughly half an hour of runtime. The reasons for Adam’s attraction are thin. The reasons for Eve’s jealousy routine are even thinner. And the final chase and reunion after Eve calls social services on Adam is contrived as all get out.

By the same token, there’s something a little pernicious about the message the relationship sends. There’s a sense of “back to the good old days” in a film that looks at divorce, casual hook-ups, and douchey players (including Eve’s ex, played by Nathan Fillion!), and says, “why can’t we go back to the decency and politeness people showed when JFK was in charge?” At the same time, though, it barely grazes the stifling gender roles and expectations, the racism and other prejudices more accepted by society, and the host of other social problems that were at play outside of the Weber family’s suburban paradise. Blast from the Past invokes the nicest, friendliest elements of that era, and carefully ignores the uglier ones.

But honestly, it’s fine. Blast from the Past is a shallow film, and kvetching about the ill-considered social messages it sends is like questioning the quality of fondant on a hostess snack cake. As cinematic junk food the viewer doesn't intend to take too seriously, the movie is just fine. Its humor runs way too broad in places (see: the Weber-worshipping cult that arises), and its romance and plot beats are stock and stupid. But the charming presence of Fraser in particular, and the goofy, sincerity-amid-irony vibe he and the film craft, make this a fun excursion to the surface even if it’s a pretty hollow one.

What’s funny is that this might be the legacy of the 1990s comedy. There’s plenty of brilliant comic films from that time, but there’s also a formula that was deployed to death by the turn of the millennium, involving barely-sketched characters, zany premises, and lots of pretty people and popular songs to try to spackle it altogether. For all Blast from the Past wants to, in turn, valorize and point out the quaintness of the 1960s, it puts its own form of myopia and provincialism on display.

But hey, if you can get past that, it’s more than worth some cheap laughs and a few sweet moments. It’s just funny how, as the film itself demonstrates, the passage of time can expose the eccentricities and blind spots of a certain era, whether the people in it realized or not.