"Cave Girl" (1985) is a movie that just about everyone will either really hate or avidly love. There is no in-between. I loved it – but then, as most of you know, I'm a sucker for movies in which the bungling, overweight, getting-on-in-years comedian ends up with the really luscious eighteen, or nineteen year-old girl with the blonde hair, the beautiful voice and the gorgeous breasts. In this movie, the casting is perfect. Daniel Roebuck is not only a first-class bungler, but he's the guy all the women just love to tease and mortify. The girl who really likes Dan and totally overlooks his many faults, is the ultra-lovely Cynthia Thompson. The movie was written, produced, photographed and directed by a gent named David Oliver. Oddly, despite all his talent, Oliver has no other screen credits at all. Where he came from and where he has now landed is a total mystery to me, but he sure knows how to transform a very familiar theme and expertly make an extraordinarily pleasing and utterly delightful romantic comedy. Available in Mill Creek's B- Movie Blast collection.

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.

A 20th century loser finds love in the past with an adorable blonde prehistoric babe.I'm sure that the writers of Cavegirl intended their film to be nothing more than a charming lightweight sex comedy, but that's not quite how it comes across to me: I see supposedly sympathetic nerd Rex (Daniel Roebuck) as an opportunistic sexual predator, taking advantage of beautiful child-like primitive Eba (Cynthia Thompson), 'grooming' her from the word go. I'm not blaming the guy for trying his luck—after all, Eba is smoking hot, legal, and available—but the sleazy, rather forceful manner in which he pursues her just is is just a little wrong when you think about it.So best not think about it then...Instead, just switch your brain off and enjoy the silliness and dated 80s trappings, which includes a fair amount of nudity, lots of unsophisticated slapstick humour (much of which comes courtesy of the other members of Eba's tribe), the obligatory 80s soft rock ballad, and a predictably sappy ending in which Rex's persistence pays off (the lucky bugger!) and the once pitiful nerd proves his love by rescuing Eba and her tribe from cannibals.5.5 out of 10, happily rounded up to 6 for the lovely Cynthia Thompson.

Normally, I'd be a big fan of the time-travelling and 80s odd-adventures teen comedies, but this was just plain insulting. And, although it was devoid of most anything I would consider funny, there was no shortage of your standard cheap 80s T & A, including playful locker room romp with our geek and oft-pranked hero.Daniel Roebuck, who never seemed to have an eye for good material (or may have never been offered much of it, with the exception of The River's Edge), plays our nerdy protagonist. A teen brain, he joins his classmates on some archaeological field trip and, thanks to his frequent taunters, loses the group and inadvertently stumbles upon an Air Force experiment which sends him back in time to the age of the cave man. Of course, already being amateur hour to begin, he finds a cave girl (complete with cave girl bikini ensemble and shiny white teeth) and does what anyone would do if suddenly sent back in time -- he teaches her the English commands that would get him laid.Bottom line: if it's the nudity you get off on, then you'll likely be satisfied with even watching this crap on mute. If these are the kind of adventure tales which you seek, production values be damned, I would recommend digging for better low-budget titles like 'My Science Project.'