“This film will take you where no one has ever been before; no eye witness has actually seen what you are about to see, But in this would of ours where going to the moon will soon be upon us and where the most incredible things are happening all around us, someday, perhaps tomorrow, the fantastic events you are about to see can and will take place.”

It is the height of the cold war and Jan Benes (Jean Del Val) is defecting from “the other side” when an assassination attempt leaves him in a coma. Both sides have figured out shrinking technology, but the only man who knows the secret to making the effect last longer than 60 minutes is Benes. So the CMDF (Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces) enlists the help of espionage agent Grant (Stephen Boyd) and a team of doctors to be placed in a high-tech nuclear submarine, miniaturized, and injected into Benes’ body. Grant, Dr. Michaels (Donald Pleasence), Dr. Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and Cora (Raquel Welch) only have one hour to traverse their way to Benes’ brain and eliminate the brain clot that is causing his coma before they return to normal size. However, they soon find themselves in a series of perils including avoiding being crushed by the heart, running out of air, being sucked into the lungs, and being attacked by antibodies—not to mention the fact that there’s a saboteur on board the ship!

I’m a huge fan of the ’80s film Innerspace, so I was excited to finally see the original film that inspired it. I really enjoyed the premise and found the film quite thrilling. I was constantly at the edge of my seat wondering what danger our travelers would face next, and how they would get out of it. While the film was entertaining, I sometimes found myself pulled out of the story by the dated special effects.

There are many scenes that look beautiful—including a lot of shots of the ship traveling through the body. It is quite impressive what the film was able to accomplish without the use of computers—when every effect had to be filmed practically. From the various tissues of the body to the ever-flowing blood vessels there are some impressive visuals. However, while the special effects were quite impressive at the time the film was made (and won the Oscar), many of them don’t really hold up today. Most of the shots inside the ship’s navigation dome do not fare that well. These green-screened scenes suffer from visible matte lines around the actors. The painting out of these lines is sometimes sloppy—in some scenes, the glass dome at the top of the ship is partially missing, and in another scene the side of someone’s face is missing! These matte line issues are probably made more evident due to the high definition presentation—some of these same scenes look just fine in the trailers where the picture is untouched and has some noise.

The bonus features on the Blu-ray include an interesting documentary on the special effects of the film, two interesting audio commentaries, a storyboard/final scene comparison, and an isolated film score.

What’s Included on the Blu-ray:

Film: (1:40:37)

• Widescreen 2.35:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 1.0, Spanish DD 1.0, French (Quebec) DD 1.0, French DTS 5.1, Castilian DTS-HD MA 1.0, German DTS 5.1, Italian DTS-HD MA 1.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French, Castilian, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish

Extras:

• Commentary by Film & Music Historian Jeff Bond (1:40:37)
  Jeff Bond, an editor at CFQ (Cinefantastique magazine), discusses the history of the film, the artistic choices, and provides some behind-the-scenes tidbits.
• Isolated Score Track with Commentary by Film & Music Historians Jeff Bond, Jon Burlingame and Nick Redman (1:40:37)
  Audio commentary provided by Nick Redman (Documentary & Music Producer), Jon Burlingame (writes about film music for the Variety, teaches film music history at USC) and Jeff Bond (writes about film music for the Hollywood Reporter, editor-in-chief of Geek Monthly magazine). The three men discuss film music history, the history of Fantastic Voyage, as well as some behind-the-scenes tidbits such as some scenes that never made it into the film. The commentary runs for 38 minutes and is followed by the isolated film score as the Proteus is injected into the blood stream.
• Lava Lamps & Celluloid: A Tribute to the Visual Effects of Fantastic Voyage (17:40)
  Visual effects supervisors Richard Edlund and Craig Barron discuss the practical effects used in the film as well the studio-based visual effects system in place at the time.
• Whirlpool Scene: Storyboard-to-Scene (2:22)
  During playback of the whirlpool scene, pressing the red button on the remote will cycle between the Storyboards, Storyboard/Scene Comparison, and Final Scene.
• Trailer & TV Spots (13:07)
  Play All or select from “Theatrical Trailer”, “TV Promo”, “TV Spot 1” and “TV Spot 2”

Final Thoughts:

While many of the film’s special effects look a bit dated, the film itself is still quite enjoyable. It has a very interesting premise and lots of cliffhangery crisis the characters must overcome. The Blu-ray also contains some interesting audio commentaries and featurettes. It’s definitely worth checking out.