“Encino Man”
FRASER SERIES, PART 1
1992 • PG • 1h 28mins
This is part one of our first series! We’re tracing what happens when character actor and '90s likable lug Brendan Fraser gets pressed into the Leading Man Mold over three movies. Tonight we’re covering Encino Man, where it all started. After that: George of the Jungle, then The Mummy.
Here’s the plot. Pals and social outcasts Dave (Sean Astin) and Stoney (Pauly Shore) go to high school in Encino, California. Dave’s digging a pool by hand in his back yard because popularity is just a matter of a pool (technically a big ditch). Dave and Stoney excavate a frozen caveman (Brendan Fraser), who thaws and transforms their friendship duo into a triad. He goes to school with them thinly disguised as an Estonian exchange student whom they christen “Link”. Everyone loves this cool guy! But can Dave greedily transfer Link’s popularity to himself in time to get a prom date? Will Stoney find the acceptance in Link he can no longer get from Dave? Will Link adjust to modern life, or just miss his (really) old one?
I’ll level with you. This is not a good movie. And that’s not just me talking. Reviewers at the time described it in a way that Rotten Tomatoes terms “generally unfavorable”. But here’s why it’s worth it. This movie? Doesn’t think it’s smart. It knows it’s goofy. It’s not trying super hard to be goofy—no irony here. It just knows that goofy is how things are going for it. Seems to be fine with it. And if you’re down for that, you’ll be fine with it too.
Things this movie is: Sweet, deeply herto, anti-bullying, pro-marajuana, a little racist, short. It was a staple of pizza-and-a-movie nights at my house growing up. If it was on cable, we watched it. Then quoted it for a couple weeks. Definitely considered digging a pool. Also developed a warped, unreasonably positive view of driver’s ed. Some flicks need you to have a slice in your hand to say “okay, yeah, sure” to them. This is one. It’s tricky to defend. Very rooted in its era. Kinda shaggy despite a short running time. But: Okay, yeah, sure.
Brendan Fraser’s real superpower is believability. He has other gifts: Likable, more handsome that you remembered, charming, carries his Canadian sadness really well. But you just buy the guy really doing whatever he’s doing. That’s key to Link’s high-concept silliness. If you don’t believe he’s a caveman, you’re not rooting for Dave and Stoney to keep him safe. But if you don’t see him as human, you don’t care if he experiences the world, man, the world! Fraser pulls off his both-at-once trick over and over. It's great here, where he has space to be weird. Real people are weird. But he'll get less and less of that space later.
Next week we’re taking Fraser out of the freezer again for George of the Jungle.
NOTES
Sean Astin’s first real thing was The Goonies in ’85. He’s been working steadily ever since, most notably in three little movies called The Lord of the Rings.
Pauly Shore’s had a long career too. His standout is, of course, voicing that one guy with the tiny sunglasses in A Goofy Movie.
This was Robin Tunney’s first film role.
.This was director Les Mayfield’s first flick. He’d go on to bring Flubber into this world in ’97.
Critics hated this, but audiences didn’t. It made $40M against a $7M budget.
Fraser snuck Link into two subsequent Shore movies. Link appears briefly in ’93’s Son-in-Law, then Fraser has a cameo as an infantryman with “Link” stitched on his fatigues in ’94’s In the Army Now.