Movie Notes: Fantastic Voyage
= 4 stars
Starring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Donald Pleasence
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Synopsis
An important diplomat has a brain clot and the military shrinks a submarine and crew to microscopic size to drive through his body and destroy the brain clot with lasers.
The Good
- Although the special effects look a bit cheesy compared to CGI, I found them rather refreshing and inventive with that “this is how they did it back then” vibe.
- Lots of nutty situations: the miniaturization process goes through several different phases to shrink a submarine culminating in its placement in a syringe. To track the progress of the submarine in the patient’s body, a goofy array of little radar dishes is pointed at the man’s body.
- Once the team is inside the human body, the effects are endless. During the voyage, we travel through the blood vessels to the heart, the lungs, the lymphatic system, the inner ear, and the brain.
- There’s the expected conflict between the know-it-all scientists and the military. Eventually the plot boils down to sabotage from within the crew.
- Lots of actors you have seen elsewhere — Raquel Welch, and Donald Pleasence in particular plays a claustrophobic, panicky character similar his “Forger” in The Great Escape.
The Bad
- Tons of logical failings and plot holes, from the biologically nonsense depictions to plot failings — the biggest one being why didn’t the submarine expand to normal size at the very end.
Conclusion
Plot wise it’s similar to two other “disaster” flicks I saw recently and enjoyed, Sunshine and The Core, where a team must save the world by getting in a vehicle and travel through dangerous territory, which puts it into the disaster-movie genre. The second bit of fascination is the crossover between adventure and science. As a kid, my favorite ride at Disneyland was Tomorrowland’s “Adventure Through Inner Space.” This movie captures much of that same feeling. It’s a fun ride.
IMDB: Fantastic Voyage
Wikipedia: Fantastic Voyage
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie when I last saw it years & years ago.
I’m often skeptical of remakes, but this is one film I’d like to see an updated treatment of. Given the incredible imagery that we now have of the human body — and with a quality script to support those astonishing visuals — this could be an incredible movie.
Yeah it’s a nice surprise when a movie one enjoyed a while back still holds
up. This would be a good remake, not only for the better special effects but
also the increased medical knowledge of the human body (hmmm, maybe I should
rent Innerspace).
This is one of those good old classic that will keep you running back to watching it over and over again