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Intro:
This week, P42 Movies will be focusing on Brendan Fraser, star of this weekends
Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Why am I not focusing on Master and Commander?
Because I couldn’t be bothered, don’t ask silly questions. Our first BF offering
for you is the movie that introduced most of the world to the goofy lunk,
California Man.
Review:
No, that’s wasn’t a mistake. You see, most of the planet hasn’t really heard of
Encino. Sorry to burst the bubble of the people in Arnie’s constituency, but it’s
not that big a place. So if I refer to the film as California man you’ll just have
to forgive me...
Two friends find a man trapped in ice after a small earthquake. They take him
home and thaw him out. It turns out that this man has been in ice since Stone Age
times, and doesn’t really fit in. So the friends, Stoney and Dave, try and teach
him how to be cool in the early nineties, hoping he will bring them popularity and
women.
They take Link, the cave man, to school and enroll him as an exchange student
from Estonia. Link proves to be very popular, which doesn’t go down too well with
Matt, the big man on campus. He digs in to Link’s past and discovers he doesn’t
have one...
This film shouldn’t work. There’s no reason for it to. This kind of teen comedy
was on the wane back in the day, after a whole bunch of them rolled out of various
studios. Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey came out the year before and pretty much put
a cap on the whole thing.
Encino Man (hey look, I called it YOUR name) doesn’t really star anyone with a big
name either. Sean Astin had been one of the Goonies, but not one you’d probably
remember. He was also in the excellent Toy Soldiers, but once again not someone
you would think of as cool. He’s the perennial loser. But that’s the role here,
and he’s not meant to carry the movie. He’s the straight man.
Pauly Shore is annoying! It’s as simple as that; the guy is just a freak. But he’s
perfectly cast here as the weird kid that somehow fits in with various people. I
can’t imagine him being in any other movie (and he hasn’t really been in that many,
before or since) but here he fits. His strange speech patterns and weird noises give
a blind leading the blind quality to his teaching of Link.
And it really is Brendan Fraser who carries this. Link is cool without trying. It’s
not the Michael J Fox guitar playing, skateboard riding, popular loser type of cool.
It’s the ‘I-don’t-know-any-better-so-I’ll-goof-around’ cool. Someone who is so free
that they do what they want and make having fun look effortless.
Obviously I’ve never met a cave man. No one has. I doubt they would have as good
teeth as Fraser does, and they wouldn’t learn English and video games quite as quickly,
but that doesn’t matter. This is a teen comedy and it’s meant to be stupid.
And stupid this movie is. And the director, Les Mayfield, doesn’t really fit the
normal mode. You’d think he made a bunch of these flicks, but there isn’t another
one on his resume. Okay, maybe Flubber, but he’s not really a director. Most of his
work has consisted of producing making-of documentaries. He does a good job here
though, with a very kinetic style that keeps the pace moving. It’s not really MTV
editing, as that’s a more recent phenomenon, but it keeps the film going.
Shawn Schepps, a girl with a guy’s name, wrote this and much like the director it
was a new thing for her. It’s the first produced script that she wrote though she
has followed it up since. In fact she can’t seem to let go of the whole Encino
thing, writing, directing and staring in what I assume is a sequel called Encino
Woman. Haven’t actually seen this TV movie, and I don’t think many others have
either. There is actually an Encino woman in this movie but it’s probably not the
same character...
Conclusion:
Encino Man is a fun little romp and a good way to waste an hour and half on a rainy
afternoon. This film didn’t have the same impact that The Goonies, Bill and Ted and
a few others flicks of the era had on popular culture, and no one seems to quote it.
I wouldn’t exactly call it forgotten, pretty much everyone has seen it, but it’s not
exactly a massive film. It is worth a look just to see some early Brendan Fraser
though. While he hasn’t gotten stuck in a rut like Jim Carrey did for a while, he
did make George of the Jungle and the casting on that was probably due to this.
Don’t expect to see any acting muscles being flexed though; it’s a no brained movie.
Not that that is a bad thing
MacGyver rating: 3 Planets
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Encino Man>>
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