Blast from the Past

In 1962, Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken) was a brilliant but somewhat paranoid scientist living with his Donna Reed-esque wife, Helen (Sissy Spacek), in Los Angeles. In the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a plane crashed into the Webber's yard. Mistaking the blast for "the big one," the ...more

The double entendre of the title -- a reference to Cold War atomic detonation as well as a common cliché -- is the most clever thing about Blast From the Past, a fish-out-of-water comedy whose original premise is a lot less airtight than your average fallout shelter. Brendan Fraser may not play a cartoon character, as he's basically done in Dudley Do-Right (also directed by Hugh Wilson) and George of the Jungle, but those admittedly marketable skills are just as over-modulated as ever. Equally ...more