Le Voyage fantastique

Fantastic Voyage boasted great special effects for its day. It also is a neat fantasy thriller being a race against the clock with a saboteur on board.

Agent Charles Grant (Stephen Boyd) has been bought in fo a secret mission. Jan Benes is a scientist who has been injured while escaping from Russia. He has a blood clot on the brain.

In order to save Benes life. American scientists will miniaturize a nuclear submarine, inject it into Benes' body and fix the clot. They have 60 minutes to do this before the submarine returns to its normal size.

Grant is warned that the surgeon Dr Duval might also be an assassin. Once they get inside the body, it is a bumpy ride and nothing seems to go according to plan.

Director Richard Fleischer manages to stay on the right side of camp. The film takes a while to get going but once inside the body, it is a nicely crafted and well paced movie with lots of suspense.

Raquel Welch is suitable eye candy. The special effects as the submarine goes through the bloodstream has a psychedelic touch. It is just a shame that the villain is a little too obvious.

An important diplomat is dying, Scientists hatch a plan to miniaturise a submarine team, and send them inside to attempt to carry out a life saving procedure.

I had all but forgotten about this film, and haven't seen it for years, as I watch it, it's almost sixty years old, it truly was original, ambitious, and way ahead of so many films at the time, and many more that followed.

There is plenty of wonderful, incomprehensible gobbledegook throughout, all of it is said with absolute sincerity, equally crazy and zany are the wonderfully trippy special effects.

It's still an impressive looking film, and I don't just mean the special effects, but the sets and costumes are all quite elaborate, credit to the production team for being so bold and creative.

Fans of Raquel Welch will enjoy seeing her here I'm sure, I came here because of Donald Pleasance, one of those actors I could watch in anything.

Definitely worth a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.

8/10.

The premise of "Fantastic Voyage" seemed very unlikely in 1966, however in 2002 I'm not so sure.

The story concerns a top secret miniaturization program being developed by the Americans and concurrently by "the other side". A scientist from the other side has the secret of counteracting the situation where the miniaturization effects wear off after one hour. Unfortunately, the scientist receives a brain injury in an assassination attempt. This results in General Carter (Edmond O'Brien), the commanding officer of the project deciding to "send in" a team of experts miniaturized, to the injured man's brain to repair the damage.

The team consists of Drs. Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and Michaels (Donald Pleasance), Pilot Capt. Owens (William Redfield) and the romantic leads, Grant (Stephen Boyd) and the ever lovely Raquel Welch as Duval's assistant. Assisting O'Brien as a medical expert is Arthur O'Connell as Col. Reid. Of course, as in most film's of this type there is the inevitable fifth columnist aboard. The acting is good, particluarly the performances of veterans Kennedy, Pleasance, O'Brien and O'Connell.

The real star of the "Fantastic Voyage" are its amazing special effects. Filmed long before today's computerized digital effects, this film still makes believable, the illusion of a team of people being injected into a person's bloodstream. To fully appreciate the effects the viewer should see it in its widescreen format.

Watch for James Brolin in a small role as one of the lab technicians. And if you get bored, there's always (snort, pant, drool) Raquel in her form fitting diving suit.

This movie holds up after nearly 35 years. The TV version is often chopped up for commercials and the print muddy, but if you can get a good video or see it on a premium movie channel, Fantastic Voyage will still produce a sense of wonder as you navigate "inside" an injured man's body with a team of intrepid explorers to find and repair microscopic damage. Some of the Cold War aspects of the film might jar, as well as a 35-year-old vision of "high tech", but the spec effects of the journey of the PROTEUS through the human vascular system was years ahead of its time.

This film was originally introduced to me at about 8 or 9 years of age on a Saturday afternoon and it quickly became a favorite of mine. This film tells the story of a brilliant scientist who is injured on his way to offer the U.S. military some much needed info for miniaturizing people and objects and allowing them to stay in the miniature state beyond the now 60 minute time limit the military is faced with. With a top-notch cast that includes; Stephen Boyd, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasence and Raquel Welch as the medical Dr.'s and scientists that are miniaturized and injected into the scientists body in an effort to repair a wound that can't be fixed through the usual means. The effects in this film are truly amazing and make for a lot of fun as the sub/crew journey through the body and face problems along the way, especially as they are attacked as foreign bodies by the scientist's own natural defense system. If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing this little gem, by all means find it and rent it and if it's been a while, why not revisit this film, I'm amazed at how well it stands up, even after almost 40 years since it's release.