Fantastic Voyage (1966) - film review

American and Soviet scientists have both discovered how to miniaturise matter but the technique is of limited value since shrunken objects return to their full size within sixty minutes.  One man, the Czech researcher Jan Benes, has found the solution to this problem, but whilst defecting to the United States, he is the victim of an assassination attempt and sustains a potentially fatal head injury.  The only way to save Benes is to remove a blood clot in his brain, but this cannot be achieved using conventional surgery.  Instead, a team of scientists are miniaturised, in a submarine, and injected into Benes’s bloodstream.  They have just one hour to find the blood clot and remove it with a laser device, after which time they will begin to revert to their normal size and be attacked by the patient’s immune system...

Fantastic Voyage is one of the few science-fiction movies of the 1960s that manages to rise above the epithet "B-movie schlock" and has grown to become a cult classic of its genre.  The Oscar winning special effects may look dated by today’s standards but they were state of the art when the film was released and are superior to virtually anything the decade had to offer the hard core sci-fi fans prior to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).   The science may be a bit dodgy (Isaac Asimov had to work hard to plug the holes in his novelisation of the screenplay) but if you don’t scrutinise the plot too closely it’s all good clean fun.

The film was directed by Richard Fleischer, a filmmaker of almost mind-blowing versatility.  As well as his other sci-fi films – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Soylent Green (1973) - Fleischer is credited with directing such diverse features as The Vikings (1958), Doctor Dolittle (1967), The Boston Strangler (1968), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and 10 Rillington Place (1971), films that have nothing whatsoever in common except that they are well-made and classics of their kind.  Even more bizarrely, Fleischer began his career making Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons for his father, Max.

Despite its implausible plot, lethargic pace and virtually non-existent characterisation, Fantastic Voyage is an absorbing piece of sci-fi fantasy, impressing with its imaginative design work and inspired special effects.  Of course there are some who will watch it just to see Raquel Welch in a tight-fitting cat suit, but those of us who are slightly higher up the evolutionary scale will appreciate it for what it is – a well-crafted piece of sci-fi escapism, with a deliciously nasty Donald Pleasence drowning in cloud of soap bubbles.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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