Highly Overrated But Still Good

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fantastic VoyageNever store your shrink ray next to your groin area.Smartly, the scientists in this sci-fi film are miniaturizing their entire anatomy.During the Cold War, the US helps the inventor of a shrinking formula escape Soviet internment only to have him sustain a blood clot amid the getaway.A team of surgeons (Donald Pleasence, Arthur Kennedy), their assistant (Raquel Welch), a pilot (William Redfield) and an agent (Stephen Boyd) must now be reduced to microbial size and injected into the comatose man to save him.With only an hour, the crew must defeat the body's immune system and a saboteur before they embiggen.With an inventive plot that's supported by extravagant set pieces of microscopic worlds and the weird organisms within, this visual landmark from 1966 also serves as a makeshift biology lesson thanks to its detailed designs.Incidentally, Raquel Welch inside of you is the opposite of most men's fantasy. Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

Copyright 17 August 1966 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening simultaneously at Loew's State and the Festival: 7 September 1966. U.S. release: 24 August 1966. U.K. release: 14 October 1966. Sydney opening at the Regent. 9,044 feet. 100 minutes.SYNOPSIS: American agent Grant (Stephen Boyd) helps Czech scientist Jan Benes (Jean Del Val) escape from behind the Iron Curtain. Benes suffers a brain injury when a last attempt is made on his life. CMDF (Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces) decides to repair the brain from within using a ruby laser. CMDF can shrink men and equipment to microbe size, but only for 60 minutes. The plan is to miniaturize the experimental submarine Proteus with its crew of scientists and doctors, inject them into Benes' bloodstream at the base of the neck and hope they can make their way to the brain for the operation. The crew of the Proteus includes Dr Duval (Arthur Kennedy), brain surgeon; Cora Peterson (Raquel Welch), his assistant; Dr Michaels (Donald Pleasence), navigator; Captain Bill Owen (William Redfield), sub pilot; and Grant. Dr Duval is suspected of being a traitor, but must go because of his special abilities. The Proteus is injected into Benes' bloodstream. An unexpected fistula sends the sub out of control, and precious minutes are wasted. A decision is made to take a more direct path through the heart. There are 32 minutes left before the sub and its occupants will start to grow back to full size inside Benes' body.NOTES: Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two: Best Color Art Direction, defeating Gambit, Juliet of the Spirits, The Oscar and The Sand Pebbles; Best Special Visual Effects — Cruickshank alone was cited — defeating Hawaii. Other Nominations (winners in brackets): Color Cinematography (A Man for All Seasons), Film Editing (Grand Prix), Sound Effects — Walter Rossi — (Grand Prix).COMMENT: Although it didn't make the top ten, "Fantastic Voyage" was included in the top thirty domestic money-makers of the 1965-66 season. The movie did equally good business overseas. Negative cost: $6½ million. After paying print, distribution and advertising expenses, the movie returned only a modest profit initially. Of course later sales to TV put the picture very firmly into the black — but by that time it was too late to think of a sequel or a follow- up or a spin-off — any of which (provided costs were contained) should have done well. The book-of-the-film novelization was undertaken by none other than Isaac Asimov and was still selling merrily in book shops (in fact it was easily Asimov's most popular title) twenty years later.The film's success was mostly due to its novel theme and great special effects. But a strong publicity campaign certainly helped — including this unusual endorsement from Darryl F. Zanuck: "I have just returned from the most fantastic voyage in my 36-year career in the motion picture industry. To make a motion picture that crosses a new frontier may seem impossible today. Outer space, the depths of the sea, the bowels of the earth, the past, the future — all have been subjects for the camera. Yet a film called "Fantastic Voyage" has broken through in an unsuspected direction to create an adventure of astonishing suspense and beauty. It has moved me, for the first time in my career, personally to endorse a motion picture in an advertisement. In "Fantastic Voyage", the imagination of Man and the magic of the camera are linked as never before, to offer stunning proof of my cherished belief that the motion picture medium is the most potent entertainment form ever devised — limitless in its power to go wherever the mind can reach, with credibility, emotional force and drama."Yes, this science fiction film has excellent gimmicks and very good special effects, but, unfortunately, a tired old plot with hoary characters spouting cliché-ridden dialogue. Despite these inadequacies, however, it does manage to generate a fair amount of suspense. And it certainly lives up to its advertised promise in showing us a new, unknown, unexplored (and dangerous) world. This it does very effectively.

As a child I was given chores to do around the house. My least favorite chore was pulling weeds in my backyard. I would complain to my Father who would answer me this way. "See how much you can get done in an hour!" How much can one get done in an hour? When it comes to sci-fi movies, Twentieth Century Fox has it's share of Sci-Fi classic films. The Lost World, Poseidon Adventure, Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green and Avatar just to name a few. Fantastic Voyage which could mean anything just by it's title alone. Could be a movie about the fifteenth century explorer's (Columbus) with his three ships floating to the new world? Maybe the movie is about the migration of the settlers in the mid Nineteenth century America? Maybe it's a film about a lost dog seeking out his or her owner? My imagination wasn't even close. Fantastic Voyage is a movie about shrinking 4 scientists to microscopic size in a submarine. Then injecting them inside a human body and do inverted brain surgery to remove a blood clot. I'm there! The concept is so fresh and out of the ordinary, just the thought of looking inside the most complex equipment ever produced by the big bang theory has my curiosity racing. Man is the center of the universe as stated by the submarine's surgeon Dr. Duvall (Arthur Kennedy). But lets backup and set up the scenario. The U.S. and Soviet Union have developed a method that can shrink matter. The power to miniaturize anything, but for only a short while. Professor Benes pronounced Banash (our injured scientist) who escaped to the west has the formula to extend the miniature process for an indefinite time. An assassination attempt and a car crash causes the elderly scientist to bang his head causing him to fall into a coma. Benes is rushed off to an underground secret complex C.M.D.F.(Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces). Grant (Stephen Boyd) was hired and briefed by General Carter (Edmund O'Brien) and Colonel Reid (Arthur O'Connell) to find out which one of the crew members will sabotage the voyage/surgery. Grant was hired as the communications officer and will handle the wireless. The Ship itself is a cute curvy vessel . Reminds of the board game called TROUBLE with the Pop O' Matic bubble which protrudes at the top of the submarine piloted by Captain Bill Owens (William Redfield). The curvaceous Raquel Welch (Cora Peterson) will handle the laser gun with Dr. Duval (Arthur Kennedy) earlier mentioned, and rounding out the crew is Dr. Michaels (Donald Pleasence) as an expert in the anatomy. The miniaturization process is a sight to behold as the special effects take center stage. The fearless crew travels from the bowels of the arteriosclerosis fistula to detour through the heart to cause cardiac arrest to the patient. Many obstacles in this journey through the human anatomy with one hour to get the job done before our crew begins to grow back to normal size. One of the most imaginative stories ever seen on the big screen. It's no wonder this movie won an Academy Award for special effects in 1966. I was 9 when I first watched this movie. The next day, as was the case in those days, when using ones own imagination rather then electronic devises to pass the time away. My friends and I would rein-act the movie. My younger sister Lori wanted to play the part of Miss Peterson and in retrospect Lori's acting job was far superior than Raquel Welch's. Watch out for the white corpuscles Sis!. We used my Father's Station wagon with the glass roof as "The Proteus". We would go as far as using Johnny Weinz's pool for scenes but what I remember most was when we finished playing out the movie my friend George turned to me and started shaking my hands and congratulating me just like the scientist at the conclusion of the movie. It just broke me up! So much accomplished in ONE HOUR!

I saw this as a 12 year old when it came out. Even then I was a little skeptical about the science but I was certainly astounded by the movie.I ended up becoming a physician. When I watch this today I have to shake my head at some of the more preposterous portrayals, but I find other sections and effects that are marvelously accurate. The plot, characters, action and pacing are superb. It's hard for anyone who has even the slightest taste for sci-fi to not enjoy this thoroughly entertaining work. If you know some anatomy, it's even more engaging.It's still implausible to send a tiny, manned submarine into the human body and probably will remain so. But it's not implausible that we'll be inserting unmanned nano-bots into ourselves that might perform the tasks and missions with the same precision and outcomes shown here.