I have had Fantastic Voyage on my HBO Max watchlist for quite some time. It is supposed to leave at the end of the month, but it’s probably from Turner Classic Movies, and those movies tend to come back fairly routinely and quickly. Likewise, Fantastic Voyage isn’t on any of my various movie posters to check off. I knew the movie largely by its reputation, had it there for some point in the future, and wasn’t in a rush to see it.
Then Raquel Welch died this past week, and it occurred to me I knew her mostly for appearances on The Muppet Show and Seinfeld plus a famous poster that appeared in The Shawshank Redemption. That seems like a good reason to watch one of her more famous films if ever I heard one.
It would seem that the United States and the Soviet Union are competing in the field of miniaturization. The effect lasts only one hour, but a scientist behind the Iron Curtain has cracked that. He’s also defected to America, and an attempt on his life leaves the man with a brain injury. As he is the only one who has the knowledge of how to make miniaturization a bit more permanent, the only thing to do is some brain surgery. But given his state, the only way to pull it off successfully is to send a miniaturized sub with a crew of doctors into his bloodstream to find the clot, remove it, and then get out all within an hour.
That sounds fair enough, but there are problems. Among the crew is one Stephen Boyd’s Charles Grant. Grant is a CIA agent, and he’s been brought along because someone on the ship may be a saboteur. Is it the captain of the sub, Bill Owens (William Redfield)? Maybe it’s brain surgeon Dr. Duval (Arthur Kennedy) or his assistant Cora Peterson (Welch). It could also be the circulatory specialist Dr. Michaels (Donald Pleasance), the one guy who keeps suggesting the crew cut their losses and get out early. OK, it’s probably him. But there are plenty of other dangers. The route to the brain clot doesn’t go as planned, forcing the sub to travel through dangerous sections like the heart and the inner ear, and that’s assuming the comatose scientist’s immune system isn’t triggered somehow. Can this group of brave adventurers save a man’s life from inside his own brain?
So, I knew this was a 60s sci-fi film with Raquel Welch. I suppose I expected her to be treated as more eye candy than she was, and aside from some lines here and there and a need to be rescued, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. She’s even wearing the same uniform as the other members of the crew whereas I remember a Simpsons parody of this movie that had Marge in what amounted to a bikini. I likewise expected maybe a little bit of camp or something, but what struck me most about the movie is how subdued the whole thing is. Despite the action, none of the characters seem to be particular overwrought. Grant doesn’t want to be shrunk, but he mostly keeps his complaints to an “inside voice” level and to a degree that allows his initial complaints to be easily ignored. Welch isn’t treated as a love interest to anybody. She’s probably just there to look good, but likewise, she doesn’t end the movie as Grant’s love interest or anything. Besides, for all that the movie is remembered for its special effects, it isn’t exactly a surprise who the saboteur is.
As for those special effects, there was a part of me that felt that the inside of a human being was awfully well-lit considering where they were, but the effects looked like something that would have worked out just fine in 1966. I’m watching this movie in 2023, and special effects have obviously come a long way. That said, considering what they had to work with, these are good. It’s not a Ray Harryhausen stop motion effect or anything, but if nothing else, it looks a lot better than Ant-Man‘s MODOK. I’m somewhat inclined to question the science involved, and not the miniaturization stuff, but all things being equal, there’s a reason this movie has a solid rep for 60s sci-fi.
Grade: B
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