Encino Man [California Man] **** (1992, Sean Astin, Brendan Fraser, Pauly Shore) – Classic Movie Review 2615

Director Les Mayfield’s 1992 wild and wacky teen comedy is incredibly juvenile but unexpectedly funny and engaging, coming in the wake and style of Bill and Ted and Wayne’s World. It’s now regarded as a classic 90s teen movie.

Pauly Shore and Sean Astin play Stoney and Dave, a couple of nerdy high-school outcast kids who dig up a frozen prehistoric caveman ‘dude’ in their back garden, then defrost and unleash him on their high school buddies.

They call him Link and introduce him to modern life. Though he is slow to catch on to basic concepts, he has no trouble impressing girls and helps Stoney and Dave be cool and enjoy life.

Although Shawn Schepps’s screenplay tends towards the dim and obvious, it is still packed with funny lines and situations, offering quite a lot of laughs, chuckles and smiles.

The likeable Astin gives an appealing performance, and stand-up comic Shore’s ‘cuteness’ is low key enough not to annoy. (Nevertheless, he won the Razzie award as Worst New Star.) But it is Brendan Fraser who lifts the movie into the lightly winning category as the Cro-Magnon, giving an expert, ingratiating and amusing turn. It’s a perfect showcase for what the young Fraser could do so sweetly in comedy.

Also in the cast are Megan Ward, Robin Tunney, Rick Ducommun, Mariette Hartley and Richard Masur.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2615

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