By Matt for the TIB Network:
Forgive me while I get all Lileks on you...just trying to shake things up a bit.
Here is the movie du jour: "Fantastic Voyage" starring Stephen Boyd and Raquel Welch.
Tagline: A Fantastic And Spectacular Voyage... Through The Human Body... Into The Brain.
Plot Outline: A surgical team is miniaturized and inserted into a dying man. The trick is, they only have an hour to get the job done. The intrigue is that the patient holds the information that the good guys need in order to sustain the miniaturization process indefinately.
Our two stars of this adventure pic.
Review: Okay, not a terribly bad film. It's campy, but what did you expect from a late 60's pic? It is a bit slow getting started and like all late 60's/early 70's flicks, it is full of itself when it comes to "scientific understanding" and whatnot.
The film was really dark. The images I captured had to run through Photoshop to bring some light/contrast out. I guess director Richard Fleischer realized that the sets weren't all that good and lit the thing accordingly.
What I really "love" most about films like this is just how bad the some of the sets really do look. The Proteus looks great, but if the inside of our bodies looks like a 6th grade art project, we'd be in much more trouble than we are. I mean, look at this representation of a lung:
This is supposed to be some kind of sterilization chamber. There is this odd hum that I guess is supposed to knock the crud off you or something like that.
Two more things to point out about this flick. Does this guy look familiar?
He's nobody important in this film (listed as "Technician"), but this guy goes on to play a great man very poorly. How about now?
That's right, the Reagan hater, James Brolin.
One last thing. As the film starts to wrap up I hear the score start to sound awfully familiar. And sure enough, the composer, Leonard Rosenman, was the same guy who scored Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Similar sounding music occurs after the Bird of Prey crashes in to the ocean and the whales are set loose while the crew swims around waiting for rescue.
Yep, I just had my Jonah Goldberg moment...
Mark's Remarks
Couldn't you have reviewed a more worthy and monumentally meaningful film, like TEAM AMERICA????
