v.srt%UCLA-LOCUS@sri-unix.UUCP (01/13/84)
From: Scott Turner <v.srt@UCLA-LOCUS> I saw a test showing of ICEMAN some months ago. At that time I sent in a short review, but it apparently got lost in the change of moderators. I wasn't too impressed with the movie and neither was the rest of the studio audience (as they say). An artic research group finds an outcropping of very old ice and a frozen caveman inside. They cut him out and return him to the research base, where they thaw him and (surprise!) return him to life. [The psuedo-scientific explanation: he quick-frozen by a natural disaster and didn't suffer cell rupture because he was soaked in DMSO. I have no idea how plausible an idea this is.] Timothy Hutton plays an anthropologist (who is for some reason stationed in the artic, studying Eskimos). The female lead (I forget her name) is a biologist. We also have the nasty station director, who is most interested in discovering the secret of the successful quick-freeze for the profit of the oil company who sponsors the station. The film then goes on into the usual morass of conflicts-of-interest between the various parties. The most interesting facet of the movie for me was the caveman's culture as pieced together by Hutton. His methods of research seemed a little hokey, but that is acceptable. The caveman naturally thinks that he is in some kind of supernatural setting, which leads to various complications. Hutton ends the movie by making the ``right'' choice: ie., he lets his humanistic elements overcome his scientific elements regarding the fate of the caveman (intentionally vague, so as not to spoil the film). A $1.50 film, I'd say. I'd certainly never want to see it again. == Scott Turner