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Fantastic Voyage
USA 1966
produced by Saul David for 20th Century Fox
directed by Richard Fleischer
starring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasence, Arthur O'Connell, William Redfield, Arthur Kennedy, Jean Del Val, Barry Coe, Ken Scott, Shelby Grant, James Brolin, Brendan Fitzgerald, Brendon Boone, James Doohan, Kenneth MacDonald, Christopher Riordan
story by Otto Klement, Jerome Bixby, adaptation by David Duncan, screenplay by Harry Kleiner, music by Leonard Rosenman, special photographic effects by L.B. Abbott, Art Cruickshank, Emil Kosa jr, miniatures by Marcel Delgado
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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In times of the Cold War, the West has gotten their hands on emminent
Eastern scientist Dr. Benes (Jean Del Val) but to keep him from spilling
any secrets, an assassination attempt on him is made pretty much upon
arrival that leaves him with a near fatal blood clot in his brain, a clot
that can't be surgically removed from the outside. So a way to operate on
him from the inside has to be found - and luckily, the army has recently
been working on a process to shrink down things to microscopic size, so a
plan is quickly made to shrink a submarine down to almost nothing, inject
it into Benes's bloodstream, send it up to the brain, and remove the clot
with a laser cannon. The submarine is manned by top surgeon Dr. Duval
(Arthur Kennedy), his lovely assistant Cora (Raquel Welch),
surgeon-turned-navigator Dr. Michaels (Donald Pleasence), pilot Captain
Owen (William Redfield), and radio and security officer and all-American
hero Grant (Stephen Boyd) - and one of them might be an Eastern spy. Of
course, our heroes' trip goes anything but hitchless, as on their way to
the brain they're diverted via the heart and ear-duct, need to replenish
their oxygen tanks at the lung, have to (physically) fight antibodies, and
have to fix the laser gun that has been sabotaged on the fly - and they
only have 60 minutes as they can't be kept in a shrunken state any longer.
Thing is, if they don't make it out in time and start to grow inside Dr.
Benes they're sure to be destroyed by antibodies. And when they're almost
done, Dr. Michaels reveals himself to be the Eastern infiltrator and makes
one last-ditch effort to have the mission fail, but ultimately destroys
only the submarine and himself while our heroes make it out of Benes in a
tear. Fantastic Voyage is most certainly one of the most
endearing science fiction movies of the 1960s. Sure, it's a little bit
silly (despite all the actual science put into it), and sure the Cold War
backbone seems a bit unnecessary and terribly dates the film, but there's
a sheer sense of wonder about the whole thing that's hard not to like, and
likewise the almost psychedelic design of our insides that gives the film
a rather trippy atmosphere. And while the effects work doesn't always
stand the test of time, it makes up for that in inventiveness. And when it
comes to adventure, the film really comes into its own, quickly letting
one forget the permeating Cold War propaganda, making this one pretty
entertaining film after all.
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