FuzzyTagz
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Frances Chung
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Brenda
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
JohnHowardReid
Copyright 17 August 1966 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening simultaneously at Loew's State and the Festival: 7 September 1966. U.S. release: 24 August 1966. U.K. release: 14 October 1966. Sydney opening at the Regent. 9,044 feet. 100 minutes.SYNOPSIS: American agent Grant (Stephen Boyd) helps Czech scientist Jan Benes (Jean Del Val) escape from behind the Iron Curtain. Benes suffers a brain injury when a last attempt is made on his life. CMDF (Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces) decides to repair the brain from within using a ruby laser. CMDF can shrink men and equipment to microbe size, but only for 60 minutes. The plan is to miniaturize the experimental submarine Proteus with its crew of scientists and doctors, inject them into Benes' bloodstream at the base of the neck and hope they can make their way to the brain for the operation. The crew of the Proteus includes Dr Duval (Arthur Kennedy), brain surgeon; Cora Peterson (Raquel Welch), his assistant; Dr Michaels (Donald Pleasence), navigator; Captain Bill Owen (William Redfield), sub pilot; and Grant. Dr Duval is suspected of being a traitor, but must go because of his special abilities. The Proteus is injected into Benes' bloodstream. An unexpected fistula sends the sub out of control, and precious minutes are wasted. A decision is made to take a more direct path through the heart. There are 32 minutes left before the sub and its occupants will start to grow back to full size inside Benes' body.NOTES: Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two: Best Color Art Direction, defeating Gambit, Juliet of the Spirits, The Oscar and The Sand Pebbles; Best Special Visual Effects — Cruickshank alone was cited — defeating Hawaii. Other Nominations (winners in brackets): Color Cinematography (A Man for All Seasons), Film Editing (Grand Prix), Sound Effects — Walter Rossi — (Grand Prix).COMMENT: Although it didn't make the top ten, "Fantastic Voyage" was included in the top thirty domestic money-makers of the 1965-66 season. The movie did equally good business overseas. Negative cost: $6½ million. After paying print, distribution and advertising expenses, the movie returned only a modest profit initially. Of course later sales to TV put the picture very firmly into the black — but by that time it was too late to think of a sequel or a follow- up or a spin-off — any of which (provided costs were contained) should have done well. The book-of-the-film novelization was undertaken by none other than Isaac Asimov and was still selling merrily in book shops (in fact it was easily Asimov's most popular title) twenty years later.The film's success was mostly due to its novel theme and great special effects. But a strong publicity campaign certainly helped — including this unusual endorsement from Darryl F. Zanuck: "I have just returned from the most fantastic voyage in my 36-year career in the motion picture industry. To make a motion picture that crosses a new frontier may seem impossible today. Outer space, the depths of the sea, the bowels of the earth, the past, the future — all have been subjects for the camera. Yet a film called "Fantastic Voyage" has broken through in an unsuspected direction to create an adventure of astonishing suspense and beauty. It has moved me, for the first time in my career, personally to endorse a motion picture in an advertisement. In "Fantastic Voyage", the imagination of Man and the magic of the camera are linked as never before, to offer stunning proof of my cherished belief that the motion picture medium is the most potent entertainment form ever devised — limitless in its power to go wherever the mind can reach, with credibility, emotional force and drama."Yes, this science fiction film has excellent gimmicks and very good special effects, but, unfortunately, a tired old plot with hoary characters spouting cliché-ridden dialogue. Despite these inadequacies, however, it does manage to generate a fair amount of suspense. And it certainly lives up to its advertised promise in showing us a new, unknown, unexplored (and dangerous) world. This it does very effectively.
Eric Stevenson
I had heard a lot about this movie and even knew how it ended. With all that being said, I was still really glad I saw it and it was amazingly good. There's probably some personal bias here. I love stories about shrinking people. I have also been fascinated by anatomy for awhile now. I kept asking myself whether or not this was scientifically accurate. It makes me think about my old days in High School where we learn about the pulmonary vein and the like. I'm glad that there's a note afterwards that says the people working on the movie actually did consult actual doctors to make sure they got their facts right.From what I do remember, this seems to be accurate. Anyway, this film is notorious for having a rather glaring plot hole, but that could actually be explained. It's clearly stated that all the characters go back to their normal size after an hour. One of the crew's members, Dr. Michaels, is shrunk down and killed in the ship while everyone else leaves the man's body. Now, the movie actually ends right there, so we really don't have any idea what happens next. It could be argued that the mission became a complete failure and the guy was killed when the ship went back to normal size, but we don't see that. Isaac Asimov complained about this and actually wrote a novelization that corrects this. It's said Dr. Michaels' body and the ship leave the body with the other characters.Now, we still don't see any of this happen in the movie, so it's actually difficult to say what really happened. Isaac Asimov's book version actually came out before the release of the movie so his interpretation is probably more accurate. With all this being said, I still love this movie. The strange thing is that the film has been referenced many times in pop culture, but it doesn't have a high rating here, which I find to be a shame. I truly consider this one of the best sci-fi films ever made. Again, it might be just because it uses ideas I really like.I just love the pacing of this film. It turns out this movie actually does take place in real time with the hour passing. I just love the sets in this film. I am so impressed at how this really does hold up after all these decades! None of it looks fake. I loved it from the very beginning with how creative the credits were! It just knows how to set itself up. I like movies that are big and epic, but I think the length was just perfect here. Well 100 minutes is a really even number. It was interesting to have scenes that were so quiet.It's also great to see how Dr. Michaels is slowly built up as the antagonist. Again, I already knew this but it was still brilliantly done. I just love the atmosphere this film produces. It's such a pretty looking film. It just sets up its story and deals with it so well. It's a straight forward story that doesn't try to be too elaborate. Yeah, this film is far from obscure, but I really wish more people would watch and love it! ****
flapdoodle64
The makers of this film did a good job creating an inexplicably high degree of verisimilitude which they used to paint over some absurdly impossible concepts, such as the wholesale size reduction of human beings and submarines.This film was groundbreaking in that it was big-budget, made for adults, and successful at the box-office, all of which were unusual for a scifi film in 1966. Its success helped pave the way for Planet of the Apes and 2001 A Space Odyssey.I saw this film on TV in the 1970's when I was 13. I hear it's on Netflix now.I remembered this film recently when my doctor made me get a colonoscopy, which is a medical procedure involving a tiny camera taking a fantastic voyage via one of your body's natural apertures.While the procedure was happening, I could see what the camera saw, via a TV monitor. The staff had drugged me thoroughly, so darned if I remember much.It would be an interesting experiment to take the colonoscopy monitor and switch the feed to this film for a person getting the 'scope, seeing as they drug everyone who gets it. Afterwords, interview him, see what he has to say.
White Zombie
Greetings! The Fantastic Voyage (in-case you didn't read the description) is a movie about a team of people being shrunken down inside a nuclear sub to then be injected inside someones bloodstream to remove a clot of the brain. The movie is definitely far-fetched and doesn't go into much detail about where the shrink-ray* came from, how it was developed, or why its effects are not permanent. Anyways, the point is this movie doesn't have a lot of depth to it in plot but it has an interesting story.Now anyways the movie was released in 1966 which was way WAY before I was born and I understand the effects weren't great back then but this movie actually surprised me. I don't think any of the scenes to me looked like a cheesy old 60's movie. Maybe it had something to do with me watching an HD copy but the actual scenes looked pretty good. The sets were interesting and the special effects looked great.Now back to the story... so your in a sub travelling inside the human body... most movies nowadays would just show a journey and the destination but not the exact parts of the journey. This movie actually described where they were in the human body, what certain parts and conditions were called (assuming anything said was remotely accurate), and what function a lot of the parts of the body did. The movie was very educational* (again assuming anything said was accurate) and entertaining to watch! I never thought that the space between our blood cells would have another fluid... I always thought our blood was made up of cells moving all together at once which made it look like a fluid not the cells themselves suspended in a fluid called plasma.Anyways, the movie like all movies has some bad parts to it BUT I'd say like 95% of the movie has good parts to it. The movie also isn't all educational it is entertaining I'd say very different to watch. This is definitely a movie for someone who wants to kick back, relax, and watch something different. Something that isn't like your standard movie nowadays. I only wish we could have more movies like this... the only thing I didn't like is how it ended so briefly. Essentially they went in and then they went out. It didn't really explain much after that which leaves you as the viewer with a lot of unanswered questions.Overall I'd say 7/10 for effects, 5/10 for plot deepness, 9/10 for originality, and 8/10 for entertaining bringing my total score to 7.25/10.
