Post by StevePulaski on Apr 2, 2011 11:20:36 GMT -5
Sean Astin, Brendan Fraser, and Pauly Shore in Encino Man.
Rating: ★★★
The buddy comedies critics hate I wind up liking or loving. Encino Man is the case of bad reception from critics, but cult following from Pauly fans. I've been a fan of Pauly's work for a while. I really enjoyed Bio-Dome, I liked In The Army Now, I liked Adopted, I liked Pauly Shore is Dead, but I wasn't so happy with Jury Duty. Yes Pauly Shore is overly goofy, but he defines the early nineties. Nostalgia - that kind of thing makes people go nuts.
Another reason I enjoy the film is because this is something I could see Corey Haim and Corey Feldman (two of my favorite actors) doing. Sean Astin, at this time, looked a lot like Corey Haim. Throw Feldman in the picture and replace Pauly in would be a great film. It still is funny. The downside is so much more could've been done with this plot.
The film doesn't take the most realistic route even though the plot is already unrealistic. Makes a whole lot of sense doesn't it? If you were a caveman, frozen for hundreds of years, and you thawed and came back to life, wouldn't you want to explore the world at it's fullest instead of being lead around a high school by two bumbling teenagers? I almost feel bad for the guy. He has to live through High School after being frozen for several hundred years. Talk about bad century after bad century.
The plot: Two high school outcasts named Dave and Stoney (Astin and Shore) from Encino, California are attempting to construct a pool in Dave's backyard when they come across a caveman frozen in a block of ice. They leave him in the garage with the heat cranked up to thaw him out. The caveman, now named Linkavich "Link" Chomofsky (Fraser) now interacts with the world around him as Dave and Stoney take him to school.
Dave's dreamgirl Robyn Sweeny (Ward) is wooed by Link and starts to like him. Not part of the plan. Dave wanted to ask Robyn to prom, but what stands in his way is a heartless jock named Matt (played by DeLuise, who utters one of "the greatest movie insults of all time" according to a Youtube video).
The film relies on a lot of nineties comedy cliches and doesn't really attempt to be fresh in anyway, but like I said before, I'm a sucker for these eighties and nineties buddy films. Richard Masur, Mr. Anderson from one of my favorite comedies License to Drive, plays a the father of Dave in this film acting pretty much like he did in that movie. Masur has a good father figure approach to him and is great like he was in License to Drive.
Les Mayfield directed Encino Man and this film seems like the only thing in his filmography that I would vouch for. I saw The Man and didn't feel that was good enough. Other titles like Blue Streak, Codename: The Cleaner, and Flubber don't really interest me. But it seems pretty much all of Mayfield's filmography is filled with duds.
Encino Man almost seems like a Corey Haim and Corey Feldman film that they couldn't do because they got too old. One of the reasons I like it and the fact that the characters are like my friend and I when we get into a sticky situation. It's movies like this they sort of make me wish I was a nineties kid.
Starring: Sean Astin, Pauly Shore, Brendan Fraser, Megan Ward, Michael DeLuise, and Richard Masur. Directed by: Les Mayfield.