Le monde oublié

There are some laughs to be had in this movie but the best thing going for it is the nudity. The best parts are at the beginning and the end but nudity is present throughout the movie mostly in the form of flashing breasts or bathing in a river.

This movie is now on DVD and I must say, the video quality is crisp and clear and is presented in widescreen format. Also included is the trailer.

B-movie producers Crown International Pictures seemed to churn out a lot of comedies in the 80's. The majority of them, I have discovered to my cost, are decidedly under par. Like most, Cave Girl has a title and cover that suggests it might be decent fun at the very least but in practice this is yet another laugh-free zone from good old Crown. It tells the story of a nerdy anthropology student called Rex who touches a coloured rock while out on a field trip and is somehow or other subsequently sent back in time to the prehistoric era. Almost immediately he meets cute cave girl and then more stuff happens.

You would think that an 80's time-travelling teen-comedy would at the very least have a few ideas up its sleeve. Well, you'd be wrong in this case as despite the potential in the set-up, all this one more or less boils down to is our protagonist trying to teach the cave girl English in order to facilitate having sex with her. It should be said at this point that Rex is a notably irritating central character who, despite being offered to us as the sympathetic underdog, came across little more than a sex pest. Not only that but in spite of his character being a high school student, the actor that played him looked like he was pushing forty. Needless to say, the antics of this individual are somewhat alienating and don't generate anything approaching empathy.

The film itself is a half-hearted sex comedy at best, with an early scene in a girl's locker room that did at least provide boobs which is never exactly ever going to be a bad production value. But really, the nudity is in short supply here overall and you really have to get into its humour and set-up to have any chance of appreciating it. Unfortunately, the comedy is really bad, resorting to a fart joke and an interminable sequence involving shaving cream. The prehistoric set-up is the only thing that really provides any interest but even that is pretty underwhelming on the whole, with boring cave people and little in the way of much else, aside from an encounter with a tribe of cannibals, which did enliven things a bit I have to say, although even that wasn't exactly very interesting. For a prehistoric comedy, you'd really be better off watching the cult movie Eegah (1962) or even the more recent California Man (1992); neither of those are exactly stellar stuff but both are marginally better than Cave Girl.

In his first leading role, actor Daniel Roebuck ("River's Edge", "The Fugitive") plays Rex, a geeky high school student who's constantly being mocked and made a victim of pranks. He and his science class go on a field trip to visit caves and check out the primitive paintings. Due to some sort of miracle involving jet plane tests and a weird crystal inside the cave, Rex is magically transported back to caveman times. Here he meets the girl of his dreams, the sweet, bubbly and naive blonde Eba (Cynthia Thompson). He then makes it his mission to try to seduce this prehistoric babe.

"Cavegirl" isn't anything great. At its best, it's just sort of mildly funny and engaging. Sometimes it's also silly and tiresome. But there are decent lowbrow laughs to be had as the cave people have their misadventures. The actors give enthusiastic performances, and there is a certain degree of trash on hand to please fans of the 1980s Crown International catalogue. Specifically, there's a respectable amount of bare breasts, particularly during an early girls' locker room scene. Jon St. James's deliberately dopey music score is another source of amusement. Roebuck is good (and a good sport when it comes to being the butt of jokes), but it's the charming and absolutely lovely Ms. Thompson (who sadly died much too young) who is the main reason to watch. You won't be able to take your eyes off of her, and she's enormously appealing, to boot.

There is some well executed aerial photography to begin the movie, and unlike most Crown International productions, almost all of the credits are saved for the final few minutes. Writer / producer / director / cinematographer David Oliver looked like he was working with a pretty low budget, but his movie hits the ground running and clocks in at a fairly painless 82 minutes.

Six out of 10.

No doubt about it, this was absurd. That doesn't mean I didn't like it, though. You can thank the gratuitous nudity for that. It starts off fairly decent when Rex (Daniel Roebuck) is caught in the middle of a practical joke and is in the women's locker room with at least 4 topless women. Good start it my book.

Anyhow, on what seems to be some kind of class field trip or something, Rex ends up going back in time by about 25,000 years or so and meets a tribe or family of cavemen (and cavegirls). This is where he meets Eba (Cynthia Thompson), the cavegirl I assume the title of this movie refers to. Eba is very hot when compared to the other cavegirls of this era, one of whom is a hefty old heifer who can't keep her breasts covered around Rex. Naturally, Rex falls for Eba and cheesy 80's hilariousness ensues.

I can compare this movie to Teen Wolf, Weird Science or movies like that, although not nearly as good.. and with nudity. What can I say, that's what kept me around. Cavegirl is not even close to flawless, but it wasn't too horrible to finish watching, unlike Savage Roses or A Home At The End Of The World. 6/10

Cave Girl is a humorous tongue in cheek romantic comedy that follows the romantic relationship of bumbling modern day Rex and beautiful and sexy pre-historic cave girl Eba. The movie follows the bumbling Rex through a series of slapstick pranks and mishaps that culminate in his transport 25,000 years back in time to meet and fall in love with the beautiful Eba. And, along the way, Rex becomes a man that saves Eba and the rest of the local clan from cannibals. Eventually, though, Rex and Eba must face reality. Will Rex return to his own time, where Eba cannot possible fit in, or will he stay and build a life with Eba and the rest of the tribe. This movie is a humorous, and at times poignant, look at the trials, tribulations, opportunities and decisions that young people often face as they come of age. Well worth a look.