Directed by Bill Kelly
Written by Bill Kelly & Hugh Wilson
Starring Christopher Walken, Sissy Spacek, Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Dave Foley
My Advice: Wait and Rent It.
Calvin Webber (Walken) is a brilliant man. He's also a tad eccentric, and a tad obsessed about those dang commies. After all, he's living in 1962, who can blame him? When the Cuban missile crisis goes full speed ahead, he works out an elaborate fallout shelter underneath his backyard with enough goods to keep himself, his wife (Spacek) and his son that's on the way (Fraser) in good shape for 35 years. When the sirens sound, he takes his family underground. To make matters worse, a military jet crashes into his house, making him certain that the Russkies have dropped the big one. He locks them all down there with a timer that won't let them out until it's safe to go. Thirty-five years later, the son (Fraser) goes up for supplies and finds a world completely devastated by radiation--or does he?
The premise of the film is intriguing enough, and I wish I could remember the stage play that it seems really similar to. But ah well. This is a fairly funny movie. Fraser is his normal amicable self, able to make such a boob a likable guy. And who better than Walken to play an eccentric whacko? He practically defined the archetype. Spacek is quite amusing as the long suffering wife who wants to make certain Adam visits something called a "liquor store" while he's up on the surface. Silverstone is her usual unimpressive self as Eve, the girl Adam runs into. (Get it? Sigh.) The true standout of the cast is Foley as Eve's roommate, Troy. He's very happy, as Adam would tell you.
The strength of the film is how they pit the ultimate nice guy, Fraser, against a world that he doesn't understand--the 90's. Don't feel bad, guy, we live here and we don't understand it either. When his father tries to describe baseball to him, he doesn't get it because he's never seen it. When he's told he can dial 9 to get out, he wants to know what he's getting out of. That kind of thing--and it works. Where the film goes awry, however, is (A) in Alicia Silverstone, who I can't seem to take seriously; and (2) when it tries for the poignant bit between Adam and Eve. A comedy with charm, but it won't lose anything on the small screen.