lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (04/15/84)
This movie had many weaknesses, but all were overcome by the strong performance of John Lone as the title character. He is a Neanderthal man who is revived by scientists at an arctic station after being preserved in ice for 40,000 years. The weaknesses included heavy handed messages, confused technical issues, and overly "primitive" speech. The messages you can guess, the confused technicalities concerned the mechanism of the iceman's preservation. I think they should have just waffled this one forthrightly. His speech was in the grunting genre; indicating greater physiological differences than would be probable. I thought this detracted from the theme. The revival sequence was very good, which helped get things going, and the sets were done well, but the arctic station seemed to be rather lavishly equipped, to say the least. This is artistic license I guess. The strong point was that the movie came to focus on the iceman's personal experience. The anthropologist (Timothy Hutton) who contacted him discerned the events leading to his entombment and we shifted our view to see his predicament in his own terms. The poignant truth emerged that there is nothing for him in the world of today. I actually got choked up by the ending, to my own surprise. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihuxr!lew