Opening credits: The music of “watch out behind you! p.s. you’re
just about to run into a giant spider web” plays and we are subjected
to a few minutes of dark camera work that looks like nothing and was probably
stock footage from a dead-teenager movie. Then a very ugly and dirty caveman
climbs into a cave – where there is another caveman– also ugly and
dirty. After some thought, I decide one of them is probably Brendan Fraiser.
Through the grime, it’s hard to say which one. An earthquake begins. Our
ugly dirty cavemen (one of which I later realize must have been a woman) and
their cave wobble and shudder.
Cut to: a bedroom, also wobbling. Except not really. Sean Astin looks like he’s just sort of bouncing himself on the bed, and someone off camera is just dropping things on him. And let’s face it– that’s the truth. We pan out to show Sean’s neighborhood, and more importantly, the big pit in his yard.
He’s shoveling dirt, and to move that volume of dirt with his pansy shovel– especially if he normally shovels the amount he throws at Pauly Shore– must have taken him ten years. I wonder how long he’s had this plan. What plan, you ask? Ah, the exposition-fairy sent his sister– who exists in this film for ONLY this purpose, apparently (she does nothing else), to tell us that Sean thinks he can build a swimming pool, become popular, and therefore “achieve” something in highschool. Good luck, babe. Maybe it would work better if you got out of the pit and talked to people once in awhile?
Pauly, the obligatory best-friend-who-sees-things-differently, tries to point this out on the way to school, along with the fact that Robyn (the obligatory unattainable-gorgeous-girl-in-class) is way out of his league. Also, Pauly is wearing a pink net sweater. WTH? And a headband. Dude. The early 80's are over. Put away your leg warmers.
The teacher du jour is neither funny nor memorable, so I’ll just say that he conveniently is teaching a class on prehistoric man (funny, I work at a highschool and I don’t remember that being a standard course offering). Pauly, inexplicably, seems to know answers to all the questions in this class. The trend continues that afternoon when Sean unearths something and Pauly is the one to exposit that it’s a bowl from the Myociene Era. Yep– most pot-smoking highschool students would’ve recognized it right off.
The bowl leads our intrepid not-archaeologist to an ice encased caveman– right there in his not-swimming-pool. Conveniently, I’m perfectly willing to accept this as reasonable, since Mr. Boring’s class on prehistoric man talked about underground glaciers today. (Mr. Boring told the class that he doesn’t believe that there are still underground glaciers in California shifting and causing earthquakes.) Hey, this isn’t the first time I’ve watched a movie– I know the rules. As soon as an authority calls something impossible, the impossible must occur within the next two scenes, or the screenwriter loses his job.
The family dog appears at this point because the screenwriter needs him to dig up the caveman so that Sean is free to put down his pansy shovel, discuss the situation with Pauly, and start thinking about how this could make him popular or rich. Pauly agrees to help exploit the caveman since it will give him the chance to watch more Jeopardy, and the contradictions in Pauly’s character begin to make my head hurt.
Sean makes Pauly swear not to say anything to anyone, then immediately seeks out Robyn-the- unattainable and tells her all about it. All unattainable girls have jerk boyfriends, so this is a good time to introduce Robyn’s. JBF, we’ll call him. JBF acts threateny. JBF makes faces. JBF staples Sean to a bulletin board. JBF makes nonsensical insults. JBF pulls the fire alarm. Sean is wearing short sleeves, but apparently he has lost the ability to use his elbow and shoulder joints, because he seems unable to slide out of his overshirt.
Meanwhile, back in the really oversized tool shed, the icicle containing Ugly-Dirty-Caveman suddenly starts to explosively crack apart. Did someone put gunpowder in there? Ugly-Dirty falls out, immediately jumps up, and starts screaming and running around. For someone who froze to death millions of years ago, he’s pretty quick on the recovery. And for someone who was trapped in a basaltic cave, surrounded by ice, he sure has a lot of clay all over him.
Ugly-Dirty stands up and stretches so we can see him properly, then starts running around acting cave-y. After some really unlikely antics, Sean and Pauly come home and find him trying to make fire– exactly as we saw him do in the prehistoric introduction, so anyone who was confused now knows for sure that it’s the same guy.
Intense conflict follows, and I have to wonder why Ugly-Dirty– who would have lived life as a hunter and finds himself in a very strange place– is willing to do what these two want. He’s obviously the more adept, physically, and that should be the only “authority” that he recognizes. Which leads me to wonder how they got him convinced to go in the tub for a bath. Immediately after that thought I realize I don’t want to know, and I decide I’ll suspend my disbelief on that one so that I don’t have to wonder.
The guys start mixing cleaners in a haphazard manner that’s just chemically irresponsible, and Ugly-Dirty becomes less ugly and less dirty. Sean calls him Link. Pauly’s suggestion for a name gets shafted, as do all Pauly’s suggestions, since Sean only listens to himself. Conveniently, I don’t listen to Sean, so I don’t care. Caveboy learns two or three words before Sean’s family comes home to take care of the screenwriter’s answer to the director’s question, “How would a kid get away with this? What parents would allow it?” The screenwriter’s failed attempt to make this look like a non-contrived “family scene” is highlighted by pointless--sister saying three or four lines that could earn her a SAG card, but have no bearing on anything else– including this scene.
Cut to: School. Sean fantasizes that Caveboy is his ticket to popularity. Sean obviously has no clue how popularity works. Pauly tries to defend Caveboy’s humanity, but Sean has no clue how humanity works either. Caveboy sniffs the air and seeks his prey– a friend of Unattainable- Robyn. Before he tries to carry her off to a cave, the guys grab him and tell the ladies their super-lame cover story. This scene is followed by as many uses of dated teenage slang as possible. It’s gnarly. JBF gets a “I’m gonna beat him up on the playground” look in his eye.
Pauly takes Caveboy to a convenience store and educates him in the fine art of “junkfood-as- the-four-food-groups”– an art at which I excel. Contrary to popular belief, however, milk chocolate does NOT count as “dairy”– you’ve got to eat ice cream or cheesy nachos for that. The truth is, all chocolate counts as “caffeine”, which is the group that I have chosen to substitute for the “meat group” in my diet, since “meat” is too hard to locate in a vending machine. As Pauly continues a never ending stream of slang that didn’t even make sense back when people actually used it, Caveboy learns about amusement parks: harassing park personnel, losing money at Fairway games, and riding rollercoasters. But mostly Caveboy learns the slang. And that Pauly is his bud-dy.
Sean is upset by this since it didn’t make him popular– Caveboy should only live to make Sean popular. Luckily, Sean won’t have to euthanize Caveboy yet though– he’s still serving a purpose. Caveboy got Sean an invite to the popular hangout, which turns out to be . . . an ice rink? Who are these people? Roller rinks were cool for a few years but not ice rinks. Random. As my mind searches for any precedent of “ice rink as cool hangout”, Caveboy makes some impressive ketchup/mustard artwork on the barricade plexiglass. The fact that it is a completely different drawing style from everything he did earlier is sufficient to distract me from the ice rink question. This is good because it gets me focused on the screen in time to see JBF make more grumpy faces and declare that he is king of the world. JBF shoves Sean across the ice and then hits Caveboy. In a random act of hypocrisy, Sean gets upset when Caveboy doesn’t hit back. Uh, Sean? Was it my imagination, or did I see you get shoved across the ice on your butt– and not fight back? Interesting.
Since everyone in movies can learn directly from watching something on video, the boys have an evening film fest of all fighting, all the time. Caveboy immediately knows 25 different martial arts and enough wrestling moves to start a WWF training school. (Funny though– Sean & Pauly have seen all these movies before, but they’re still just as lame as ever. Too bad– Sean could’ve prevented the bulletin-board-stapled fiasco if he had paid attention to these movies the way Caveboy does.
Back to school for another day of crazy hijinks. Caveboy chooses to roast his frog over a bunsen burner and eat it, rather than to dissect it. That would be pretty amusing, if the warning lights weren’t going off in my head. Tort law gives Caveboy the right to sue the school district for negligence after he ends up in the hospital from ingesting all that formaldehyde. Where is the teacher? And why isn’t Caveboy wearing goggles in the lab?
Everyone at school loves Caveboy though– probably even the biology teacher. All the girls. Skater boys. Hip-hop boys. More of the girls. The computer geeks. The artists. More girls. And yet . . . none of this love spills over onto Sean and Pauly. Pauly doesn’t mind because he’s well adjusted with his delusions. Sean is feeling grumpy because his delusions are delusional.
Field trip! At the natural history museum, after seeing the unlikely event of a museum worker using masking tape to put a skeleton together, Caveboy realizes that his people and his family are ancient history. Naturally, he has a freakout. (He apparently didn’t wonder where the other cavemen were until just now.) Also, he steps right into a life size diorama displaying his era. Which is impressive, since those are always behind glass. Maybe Harry Potter was there to get him in. As Caveboy struggles to come to terms with this depressing new information, Pauly is every bit as supportive and emotionally present as his favorite pink sweater might lead you to believe. Too bad Sean is stupid.
In his infinite wisdom and ultimate consideration for people who aren’t him, Sean says he feels okay about Caveboy’s misery, since it’s balanced out by the fact that Sean used to be a nobody, and now people know who he is. Yep Sean, we know who you are. You are a looos- er. Bud-dy. Pauly tells him to take it down a notch. It’s so fascinating for Pauly Shore to be the one saying that instead of . . . everybody else.
Meanwhile, JBF and his jerk friends (who are not the brightest bulbs on the tree) go through school records and discover that Caveboy’s records are fake. Shocker. JBF gets to deliver some really lame dialogue, a la “What could they be hiding???” and in my head, he is reduced to the status of a cue card in a silent movie. Except that the cue card was actually able to say it with a lot more feeling behind it. And I believed the cue card more.
Generic-Driver’s-Ed teacher appears on the scene so that we can have
a disaster with a car. At least one car-scene is a required element of the teen
movie. The screenwriter added this one when he realized the film wouldn’t
pass a teen-script inspection without it. (Luckily, the other required elements
for teen-scripts: prom, the unattainable, popularity, outdated slang, and Really
Bad Clothes were already present). In an impressive move, Mr. Plot Contrivance
schedules Unattainable-Robyn and Caveboy to practice driving together. Plot,
you tricky guy, you. You’ve managed to get U.R., Caveboy, Sean, and Pauly
all in a car together-- driving off wildly so that they can ditch the remainder
of school and have adventures at a more
traditional set for this type of thing. A bar.Ah, the perks of setting scenes
in a bar. It costs less to film since the studio has one bar set and just films
that set over and over and over for every film they make. (It’s always
too dark there to see everything anyway.) Here at the bar we’ve got dancing,
music, the opportunity to get characters drunk, to meet wacky new characters,
and to bring in police and/or bouncers any time we want. Truly, a marvelous
set. And we’ll take advantage of it!
Dancing? You betcha. Caveboy, U.R., and eventually Sean. Sort of. Drunk? I
think Pauly put away a couple quarts of tequila. But no worm, Bud-dy.
Wacky characters? We’ve got the protective boyfriend, his lovely girlfriend,
all his friends and all their tequila. And police? Definitely. Why else would
characters in a movie leave a bar?
Sean and Caveboy get to go to jail. How do they get out? How do Sean’s parents react? Who knows. Mr. Contrivance doesn’t feel like providing a nifty plan, and the Exposition-Fairy is on holiday. So we never find out how they got home after Sean used his one phone call to pathetically call Unattainable Robyn and beg her to go to prom with him. Too bad the only thing she wants from him is Caveboy.
Sean’s patheticism flares up in indignation, and he decides to ditch Caveboy at the side of the road. Harsh, dude. Especially since you never had a chance with her anyway. Pauly shows up, a knight in shining . . . weird clothes . . . and lays it on the line with a speech full of friends-don’t- ditch-each-other-we’re-in-this-together-you-have-to-take-care-of-him-cakes. Sean and Pauly start fighting, but not really– they just sort of shove each other around, like the pansies that they are. They should seriously pay more attention to those movies next time. Still– they’re fighting as much as they know how. Luckily, Caveboy believes in tough love. He separates them and makes them apologize. Everybody hugs. Awwww. Super special. I’m feeling the love.
Now that Sean is feeling the love, he gets Caveboy ready for prom. In a t-shirt, smoking jacket, and plaid shorts. No wonder Sean has never been popular. Unattainable Robyn shows up looking beautiful, as is required of all girls in high school movies with proms (which pretty much means all high school movies). For some reason, guys are not required to always look nice. And Sean and Pauly don’t even try, since they’re staying home drinking beside the not-pool.
The “JBF investigates” plotline, which was dropped like a rock after the reading of Caveboy’s school file, suddenly reappears. JBF finds photos of Caveboy in Sean’s room. I’d tell you why he was in Sean’s room, but basically, it was the work of our friend Mr. Contrivance again, so really, it doesn’t matter. JBF immediately knows and believes that Caveboy is, in fact, a caveboy. Since he’s stupid, JBF heads off to the prom thinking that when aveboy’s secret is revealed, his popularity will evaporate.
JBF– here’s a hint: next time, call the National Enquirer and set your own price for selling them the photos. Prom, shmom. The Enquirer will give you money for those puppies.
Meanwhile, back at a really big pit in the ground, Pauly and Sean hear some noise and start off running, only to discover that they’re too late to stop JBF’s escape with the compromising photos. They must dash to the school! They must stop him! They don’t seem to realize that National Enquirer readers are the only ones who would believe the story anyway.
The camera starts to wobble and I mentally cue up the 70's classic I Feel the Earth Move (Under My Feet) as we all pretend this earthquake looks realistic. The camera shot is focused on the not-pool instead of on the actors. Hmmm– did I just see something move in there? What ever could it be?
It’s a law in Hollywood that teen movies can only be made about students
who are cool enough to be prom royalty– and this is no exception. As U.R.
and Caveboy are being crowned king and queen, JBF arrives with the polaroids.
JBF makes an annoying and really unrealistic bid for everyone’s attention
(he was better as a cue card), then announces that Caveboy is . . . a caveboy.
Everybody claps. JBF loses it. That’s okay though– he never really
had it in the first place. He challenges Caveboy, who totally thrashes him.
Apparently JBF needs to watch more martial arts films. Maybe he can go to video
night at Sean’s house? Maybe not– Pauly pours traditional-prom-red-punch
over JBF’s head. The punch is symbolic of the fact that JBF
will never be popular again, but Sean and Pauly are now going to be the most
popular people in the studentbody. Especially after they do a crazy little line
dance that they’ve apparently been rehearsing together. Everybody loves
it.
In the past two days Sean was actually confident enough of this turn of events
that he somehow found the time to line his pit with plastic and fill it with
far more water than could possibly have come from the rain. There’s no
sign of the big old chunk of ice that showed up in the water last time the earth
. . . moved . . . under my feet . . . Good thing– a partial glacier would
have made a dirt pit filled with water less classy. Everyone goes to Sean’s
house to chill
next to his not-pool after the prom, as he always hoped they would. There are
guys in full tuxedo splashing around in the water. I think it’s symbolic:
Sean is totally popular now!
Miraculously, even U.R. has now decided that she likes Sean, even though he hasn’t actually done anything since the last time she rejected him. Ah, the whim of fate. Unattainable Rebecca has dropped the “unattainable” from her name. Smoochy, smoochy.
Could it be any more perfect?
Well, yeah, definitely.
But I’m just gonna throw you one other plot point and move on with my
life.
Pauly and Caveboy discover telltale clay marks on the back door. Another caveman! But instead of sitting around trying to start a fire all afternoon, this one jumped in the tub! Interesting– why would this caveman choose to clean up? Oh wait– this one is a cavewoman. Problem solved. Apparently this is the mate of Ugly-Dirty. She cleans up less ugly and less dirty just as he did. Thank heavens.
The long lost prehistoric lovers reunite, and all’s right with the world– because the movie is ending. And you may be asking, “What was the overall theme? What was the message of this film?” Well, you could choose humanity vs. selfishness or self-worth vs. popularity or mayonnaise vs. miracle whip, or any number of things. But don’t. Take it from an authority on the subject: It is useless to look for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.*
*Cher Horowitz, 1995
