A cult favorite comedy swamps the streaming ranks in false apocalyptic cheese

Thanks entirely to the existence and success of The Mummy, you’d be forgiven for thinking that 1999 was a banner year for the career of Brendan Fraser. And while it was to a certain extent, it often gets overlooked that both slapstick comedy Dudley Do-Right and heartfelt romance Blast from the Past wound up leaving critics and paying customers nonplussed.

The latter is currently riding the coattails of the Fraser renaissance, though, having snaffled a spot on the iTunes global charts a full 23 years after just about managing to recoup the $35 million budget from theaters, as per FlixPatrol. Reviews were (and continue to be) thoroughly mediocre, but Blast from the Past has been cultivating a reputation as something of a cult classic, largely due to another underrated and endearingly charming turn from the beloved leading man.

Fraser plays a 35 year-old that’s spent his entire life living with his parents in a fallout shelter underneath their California home, after a plane crashed into their abode to lock the family inside, leaving everyone else under the impression that they’d died, while the Webber clan assumed that the human race had been eradicated by nuclear warfare.

However, when supplies finally begin to run low, Christopher Walken’s patriarch sends Fraser’s Adam out in the world for the first time ever, where he discovers that his entire existence has been a lie. Cue a meet-cute with Alicia Silverstone, a burgeoning romance, an upended worldview, and a saccharine rom-com that layers on the cheese so thick you might want to avoid Blast from the Past if you’re lactose intolerant.