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nTitle: Innerspace (1987)
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nDirector: Joe Dante
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nCast: Martin Short, Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Robert Picardo,nKevin McCarthy
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nReview:
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nInnerspace is a film directed by Joe Dante, the guy behindnGremlins (1984), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) and Explorers (1985). Here’sna guy who loves sci-fi and horror films and on top of that, he loves his WarnernBros. cartoons. You can tell the guy loves old genre films, all of his filmsnare filled with little homage’s and nudges to his favorite films, for examplenin Explorers, one of the kids falls asleep watching War of the Worlds (1953), innGremlins 2 he uses horror icon Christopher Lee to play a mad scientist, and innMatinee (1993), he paid a loving homage to genre director William Castle andnhis films. It’s no surprise then that Innerspace also serves as a homage to anclassic science fiction film from the 60’s: Richard Fleischer’s FantasticnVoyage (1966), a film in which a group of scientists have to miniaturizenthemselves in order to enter a another scientist’s body so they can eliminate anblood clot from his brain. You see, this comatose scientist knows how to makenthe miniaturization process last indefinitely instead of a limited amount ofntime and if he dies, the secret is lost forever. Innerspace works with thesenideas, but in a slightly more exciting and modern fashion.
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nIn Innerspace we meet Lt. Tuck Pendleton, a pilot for thenU.S. air force and a class A drunkard, yet in spite of his drinking problem, Lt.nPendleton takes part in a history changing experiment that will miniaturize himnand have him injected into a test bunny in order to conduct a series ofnexperiments from within the bunny. Unfortunately, the minute Tuck isnminiaturized and inserted into a syringe, terrorists attack the lab before henis injected into the test rabbit! Somebody wants to steal the top secretnminiaturization technology! But, fear not, one of the scientists takes thensyringe that has the miniaturized Tuck in it and runs away with it! The scientistnends up hiding in a mall, where he stumbles upon supermarket employee called JacknPutter. In an attempt to save Tucksnlife, the scientist injects Tuck into Jacks left butt cheek! Now Tuck is insidenof a complete stranger! Tucks mission is now to find a way to communicate withnJack and inform him of what’s happened. Oh, he also has to get back to the labnbefore his oxygen supply runs out! Will he make it on time before he dies inside of Jack?
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nWhile Innerspace shares the same basic premise seen in FantasticnVoyage, that of conducting experiments dealing with miniaturization, it is alsona very different movie in many ways. First off, in the first film the mainncharacters are inserted into the body of a comatose scientist, whichnimmediately makes the film a bit slower in pace. In Innerspace the mainncharacter is injected into a hyper active, paranoid supermarket employee/nerdynguy called Jack Putter. Putter is played by the one and only Martin Short, whonmakes this film even more entertaining than it already is. I mean, for me,nMartin Short has always been this incredibly funny comedian. In the right movienthe guy can really shine. Ever seen him play Ned Nederlander in Three Amigos!n(1986)? Do yourself a favor, hilarious! Innerspace was the first film he evernstarred in as the main character, and he really took the opportunity to shownwhat he’s made off. He plays this paranoid nerdy guy who gets extremelynagitated, he lives in constant fear, basically, he’s afraid of life. The interestingnpart comes when Lt. Tuck Pendleton is injected into his body. Pendleton finds anway to communicate with Jack, who at first thinks he is possessed by demonsnwhen he hears Tucks voice inside his head. But once Jack understands what’sngoing on, Tuck becomes sort of this driving force inside of Jack, a force thatngives him the push necessary to do things he would have never done before.nThrough Tuck, Jack gains an inner strength he never had, he evolves intonsomeone who will go up against life instead of shrivel in fear of it, this is ancharacter that we see evolve and grow through the course of the film.
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nAnd that’s one of the best things this film has, charactersnplayed by a great cast. True, Short steals the show here, but Dennis Quaid asnTuck also does a fantastic job, especially when we take in consideration that henacts 90% of the film while inside of this small pod; still he pulls it offnmajestically. Joe Dante uses a series of actors in all of his movies; fornexample he always uses Dick Miller in one form or another. Miller is sort ofnDante’s good luck charm; on Innerspace he plays a cab driver. He also usesnKevin McCarthy a lot; on this one McCarthy plays the villainous Crimshaw, thenguy after the miniaturization chip. By the way, the villains in this film arencartoony in nature, so the film has that sort of fun vibe going for it. It’snlike a Warner Bros. cartoon at times, I love that about this one and of course,nthis cartoonish vibe goes perfectly within the context of a Joe Dante film, henbeing the WB cartoon lover he is. Look out for various WB cartoon references throughoutnthe entire film, both visual and auditory. For example, when thenminiaturization machine stars spinning, it makes the sound the Tazmanian devilnwould make when he spun like a tornado. So yeah, this is a Dante film throughnand through; he brings his love for old cartoons, genre films and his usualngang of actors.
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nOf course, something has to be said about the specialneffects work on this movie, which is simply amazing. So much so that the filmnwon an Academy Award for it. First up, when Lt. Tuck is miniaturized, we’renthere with him the whole way, we see the interior of Jacks body and here’snwhere this film is different from Fantastic Voyage, the interior of Jacks bodyndoesn’t look like a set the way they looked on Fantastic Voyage, sorry to hitnon the classic, but it’s true. When I watched Fantastic Voyage, I couldn’t helpngetting this vibe like these actors where just floating on wires in a campynset, this is a problem that they fixed on Innerspace. There’s this amazingnsequence when Tuck gets close to entering Jacks wildly pumping heart! That shotnwas amazingly well achieved, so much so that in his review for the film, RogernEbert thought they had used real life footage of a heart! Dante had to let himnknow that it was all achieved through effects work. The guys at ILM wherenawarded the best visual effects award for their work on Innerspace. In thenfilm, Lt. Tuck Pendleton can use this face altering technology; basically henpushes a few buttons on his pod and Jack’s face begins to convulse and twitchnwildly until it changes completely. This is one of the most jaw droppingneffects sequences in the whole film, achieved by makeup effects genius/guru RobnBottin. Dante and Bottin had previously worked together on thengroundbreaking effects work for The Howling (1981) and later again in Explorersn(1985), two films that also excelled in the make up effects department. Inpersonally had to freeze frame these sequences, I was so amazed by them,nflawless work. So, all around great effects work on this show.
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nThe comedy element is also fantastic on this one; the combinationnof Martin Short, Robert Picardo, and Kevin McCarthy was the perfectnamalgamation necessary for a truly funny film, Dante knows that in order to getna funny picture, you need truly funny actors, and this combination of actorsnwas the perfect comedy storm. So my friends, as you can see, this is one ofnthose movies where everything just clicked to perfection. I mean, how funny isnRobert Picardo as ‘The Cowboy’? Really funny, that’s how funny! By the way,nPicardo is also one of those actors that Dante has used on more than one occasion,nPicardo played the aliens on Explorers and he did that show stopping werewolf transformation sequence in The Howling as well. Across his career, Picardo has had extensive experience collaborating with make up effects artists, for example, he was also that water witch ‘Meg Mucklebones’ in Ridley Scott’s Legend (1986), Innerspace is just another of the films where he participated in a make up effects heavy sequence. In closing I’ll say that this film is antrue joy to watch. It is fast paced, extremely funny, has fantastic visualneffects and a great cast, what’s not to like about this one? Dante was one ofnthose directors who defined the 80’s for me, he had a great sense of humor andna love for the genre that is palpable in all of his films, that’s why his filmsnare still watched and talked about after all these years. What? You haven’tnseen Innerspace? Now that I don’t like! Do yourself a favor and rent/buy thisnone and have yourself a fantastic voyage of the Joe Dante kind, thank me bynleaving a message below after you’ve seen it!
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nRating: 5 out of 5
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