Fantastic Voyage

This is not only a great science fiction film, it is also a great thriller as well. I especially loved the fact that this was supposedly done in "real time" and that the characters and that it was not only a mission to save the scientist life, but a race against time before the miniaturization wore off. Also, even though the effects are dated, they still were pretty good for the era they were produced in.

This movie holds up after nearly 35 years. The TV version is often chopped up for commercials and the print muddy, but if you can get a good video or see it on a premium movie channel, Fantastic Voyage will still produce a sense of wonder as you navigate "inside" an injured man's body with a team of intrepid explorers to find and repair microscopic damage. Some of the Cold War aspects of the film might jar, as well as a 35-year-old vision of "high tech", but the spec effects of the journey of the PROTEUS through the human vascular system was years ahead of its time.

"Fantastic Voyage" follows a surgical team of three scientists: Dr Peter Duval, the top brain surgeon in the country (Arthur Kennedy); Cora Peterson, his technical assistant (Raquel Welch); Dr Michaels, chief of the medical mission (Donald Pleasance), plus the skipper of the ship (William Redfield) and Grant (Stephen Boyd) the security agent for security purposes...

The sealed vessel—The Proteus—is reduced down by a secret branch called CMDF (Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces) and injected into one artery of a defecting Russian scientist who has suffered brain injury and he's in a coma from an assassination attempt... The crew must navigate to the scientist's brain (within exactly 60 minutes) where Dr Duval will attempt to dissolve the coagulum with a laser beam… After that everything starts growing back to its original size…

"Fantastic Voyage" is a film of authentic wonder: An ocean of life, the corpuscles, the heart, the lungs of the human body through which the crew move are exquisitely designed in great detail with artistic quality...

The plot creates unceasing moments of suspense as the ship and its crew are continually threatened by the scientist's natural defenses: white corpuscles, reticular fibers, antibodies and other factors… Leonard Rosenman's futuristic score nicely complements the adventure on screen with the strange sound of the human blood rushing through arteries, veins, rhythmical muscular movements, and of course, the sabotage occurred on board…

With two Oscar Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction, 'Fatastic Voyage' is certainly the most unusual journey into the human body, where the 'medieval philosophers were right. Man is the center of the universe. We stand in the middle of infinity, between outer and inner space. And there's no limit to either.'

Back in 1966, long, long before the world was turned upside down and inside out on Sept. 11, the world was a very different place. The movies were quite different and science fiction pictures depended more on good writing and less on special effects. Partly because the phrase "computer generated" was years away. In 1966, 20th Century Fox released a very clever, well-written and innovative movie called, "Fantastic Voyage". The on-screen foreword informed the viewers that they were going to be taken to a place that no one had been before, and see things that had been, until that point in time, never been seen by human beings. I'm sure that this film had its fair share of technical advisors putting in a lot more than their 2 cents worth to make sure that the film accurately depicted human anatomy. The plot... A scientist, Jan Benes, has defected from behind the Iron Curtain, has, with the help of Grant, one of our top CIA operatives. Benes has decided to give his expertise with Miniaturization to the US. The "other side" has no choice but to try to kill him before he can breathe a word of it. The assassination attempt is made, but Benes barely survives, falling into a coma. After the movie's credits finish rolling, Grant is brought to a secret, gov't location. There, he meets Gen. Carter, who is in charge of the CMDF - Combined Miniature Deterent Forces. They can shrink anything; cars, planes, tanks, people way down in size, thus enabling them to become unseen military weapons. The problem: both sides have this capability. Another problem is... there is a time limit. They can only stay miniaturized for 60 minutes. After that the object or person automatically starts to grow. Benes had the answer to this problem, but he will need special medical treatment to regain consciousness. That's where Grant and a special team of doctors, technicians and such will have to go into action. After Grant meets the rest of the team, the surgeons in charge, Dr. Duvall and Dr. Michaels go over their plan to remove the blood clot in Benes' brain. They will board a special Navy submarine, called The Proteus, be miniaturized and injected into Benes' body by hypodermic needle. Naturally, the crew runs into Murphy's Law and a job that was expected to take 10 to 15 minutes takes much, much longer. The ending in the movie differs quite a bit from the book written by Isaac Azimov (I know because I read it... twice), and there are a number sub-plot twists that made me shake my head, but seeing Ms. Welch in that wet suit made it more than worth while. I consider this movie to be one of my very favorite sci-fi/fantasy flicks from the '60s. If you haven't seen it yet, for whatever reason, I can suggest you spend the 100 minutes with some very fine actors, some of whom are no longer with us, such as Stephen Boyd (Grant), Edmund O'Brien (Gen. Carter) and Arthur O'Connell who was in charge of the medical team, and others like Arthur Kennedy (Dr. Duvall), Donald Pleasence (Dr. Michaels) and last but not least, the ever-beautiful, Raquel Welch as Cora Peterson, Dr. Duval's technical assistant. One last thought.... if this movie was remade with present-day technology, i.e. computer generated imaging and the like, there's no telling how it would dazzle the viewers' eye.

When I was a young lad, approximately 10 years of age, I was a tremendous big fan of a Sci-Fi comedy called "Innerspace", released in 1987 and starring Dennis Quaid and Martin Short. Little did I know back then that this movie was inspired and also - knowing the director Joe Dante – paying tribute to the 1966 groundbreaking adventure "Fantastic Voyage". You won't hear me state that this is a flawless masterpiece, or even that the special effects and visuals still look mesmerizing by today's standards, but it definitely still stands as one of the most imaginative and original Sci-Fi adventures ever made. The plot and futuristic world perspective of "Fantastic Voyage" are quite ambitious and grotesque, even for contemporary sixties standards, but that is probably what makes it so unique. I'm sure that, back in 1966, certain people honestly assumed that this type of scientific technology would be possible around the year 2000. The story actually is typical Sci- Fi fodder, only… completely different! Numerous movies of its kind revolve on an elite crew going on a dangerous expedition into the unfamiliar territories of outer space. Well, "Fantastic Voyage" revolves on an elite crew going on a dangerous expedition into the unfamiliar territories of INNER space! The titular fantastic voyage is, in fact, a journey inside the human body. When diplomat Jan Benes is nearly assassinated, a five-headed crew (2 doctors, a female assistant, a pilot and a safety guard) and their especially designed submarine are urgently miniaturized and injected into his comatose body in order to neutralize a lethal blood knot from inside his brains. They only have 60 minutes before the current miniaturization techniques abruptly stop working and they grow back to their normal size, so it's absolutely essential to succeed their mission because the patient is the only person who knows the secret to expand the miniaturization time! Okay, admittedly this last aspect of the plot is somewhat tacky, but don't allow it to ruin the fun! The biggest accomplishment of "Fantastic Voyage" is that Richard Fleischer, and of course his cast and crew, succeed in making our everyday human body equally mysterious and menacing as the outskirts of space … and even more so! The landscapes of the heart are more ominous than desolate planets, the cyclones in the lungs or tidal waves in the ear are heavy ordeals and our bodies' defense mechanisms are more aggressive than aliens. The story simultaneously also focuses on the search for a saboteur among the crew members, although it's fairly obvious from the beginning who this is (especially if you're a bit familiar with the oeuvres of the players). Raquel Welch's role is rather redundant, but she looks nice in her tight uniforms and her male colleagues were offered the unique occasion to fondle her boobs during one particular scene. Reading other reviews and posts on the message board around here, it seems that many people want this film to receive a remake. I, for one, don't agree. I would hate to see a fully computerized version of this film and will always prefer the charm and old-fashioned skills of classic Sci-Fi.