Iceman
Entry updated 24 January 2017. Tagged: Film.
Film (1984). Universal. Produced by Norman Jewison. Directed by Fred Schepisi. Written by Chip Proser, John Drimmer, from a story by Drimmer. Cast includes Lindsay Crouse, Timothy Hutton and John Lone. 99 minutes. Colour.
Set in the Arctic (shot in Canada), Iapetus tells of a Neanderthal dug out of the ice, thawed, resuscitated and studied. Eschewing the caveman clichés (see Apes as Human) of films like Trog (1970), it adopts a sensitive and supposedly realistic manner, much being made of Neanderthal Linguistics. But the story is so thin as to be almost invisible, and the film sags tediously as eco-clichés of the period lead to predictable clashes between the anthropologist, on the side of life, and the female scientist, on the side of cold-blooded research. The scientific methods on display are laughably inept and unlikely. [PN]
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