Iceman

D: Fred Schepisi C: Timothy Hutton, John Lone, Lindsay Crouse

A team of artic scientists discover a body in an ice-block, and we more than expect that it may be James Arness in there, or some other intellectual carrot. Instead we get a reasonably realistic “iceman”, frozen for 40,000 years.

Not only is he perfectly preserved, he is (of course) alive. Initially, the find is treated as the discovery of the century – as well it should, these people are, after all, scientists – and an effort is made to isolate the mysterious antifreeze in his bloodstream.

An anthropologist, however, insists that he is a man – he is after all an anthropologist. Soon, “Charlie” becomes his pet project (quite literally) and the two engage in some male bonding.

Apparently, his colleagues agree that there’s no reason to involve the scientific community. After all, there’s always some Carl Denham out there, who just wants to exploit him, and Charlie’s just too damned cuddly for that.

Luckily, the anthropologist knows exactly what to do. Having mastered ten words of the iceman’s vocabulary and consulted not only some Eskimos (who after all haven’t evolved in 40,000 years) and the collected works of Jung, it becomes clear to the scientist that he’s on a dream-quest to find a trickster and discover his feminine side.

He also has a death-wish which, as luck will have it, can be fulfilled by a helicopter. Obviously, the hero has seen a lot of horror movies and knows what he’s supposed to say, when the misunderstood monster dies.

“Maybe it’s better this way.” This of course goes double for ecologically correct monsters (as indicated by the pan flute on the soundtrack).

He does however almost get to carry off the heroine, the hero going “NO! Bad iceman!”

Well, excuse me for asking, but what happened to the discovery of the century? How about learning the poor guy’s language, getting him a wife (what woman doesn’t dream of marrying a real caveman?) with lots of little icemen to study?

Oh, sorry. This is a Disney movie.