Blast from the Past
A romantic comedy about a naive man who comes out into the world after being in a nuclear fallout shelter for 35 years.
- Director:Hugh Wilson
- Genre:Comedy / Drama / Romance
- Runtime:99 minutes
Cast
Brendan Fraser : Adam
Alicia Silverstone : Eve
Christopher Walken : Calvin
Sissy Spacek : Helen
Dave Foley : Troy
Official Site:-
Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken) is a brilliant, eccentric, and paranoid Caltech nuclear physicist (see mad scientist), living the stereotypical happy 1960s life during the Cold War. His extreme fear of a nuclear holocaust leads him to build an enormous self-sustaining fallout shelter beneath his suburban San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles home. One night, while he and his pregnant wife, Helen (Sissy Spacek), are entertaining guests, a family friend comes to inform him that John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev are getting into a debate. The family turns on their television, and watch in horror. When the Cuban Missile Crisis begins, they ask their guests to leave, and they head down into the shelter. Meanwhile, a USAF pilot has engine problems with his F-86 Sabre; he is ordered to eject, believing his jet will crash into the Pacific Ocean. Just as they descend into the shelter, the plane veers off and crashes into the Webber home, leaving their friends and family to believe the family has died. The family, having seen the resulting fireball just as they lock themselves in their shelter, believe that the unthinkable has happened and that they are the sole survivors of a nuclear war. The locks on the shelter are set for 35 years and cannot be overridden by anyone inside or outside the shelter – for “their own protection” according to Calvin Webber. They also realize they had accidentally left the radio upstairs; it is now destroyed.
A few days after the locks have been engaged, Mrs. Webber goes into labor, and gives birth to a baby boy, who they name Adam. During the roughly 35 years they are down in the shelter, the world above drastically changes, while the Webber’s life remains frozen in 1962. Adam is taught in several languages, all school subjects, dance, boxing, and many other things. The family passes time watching black and white movies via a projector. Adam is given his father’s baseball card collection, and shares in IBM, Polaroid, and AT&T.
In the present (which would have been October 1997, though this is not specifically stated in the film) the timer on the locks releases, and Calvin decides to check out the surroundings above the shelter (in full protective gear), which has turned into a ghetto. He mistakes this for a post-apocalyptic world and wants his wife and grown son (Brendan Fraser) to stay in hiding, but suffers from chest pain. Adam, who is naïve but well-educated, is sent for supplies and help, thus beginning his adventures. Read more
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