Innerspace - 1987

Here is my first review of what might be called a "normal" and or "well-known" movie.  Sure, I've reviewed all sorts of older well known movies (War of the Worlds) but this one is the biggest....I just remembered I reviewed Nightcrawler on this website.  Ah fuck it.  I still don't review big well known movies that often, okay?  Just go with me on this.

I mentioned to my wife the plot of Fantastic Voyage, the submarine shrunken down and injected into a person idea, and she immediately mentioned Innerspace, which I had never seen.  So we Netflixed that shit up and watched it last night.  I contemplated doing a review vs not doing one, but May is most likely going to be a pretty sparse month for me review wise, so each one counts.

Okay, getting right into it, Innerspace is a pretty blatant copy of Fantastic Voyage except with an action adventure comedy twist.  Dennis Quaid plays Tuck, an alcohol swillin', trouble causin', rebel scientist.  He is taking part in an experiment to - you guessed it - shrink him down inside a submarine and inject him into a rabbit.  Turns out another company is working on similar things, and they bust in as soon as his submarine is inside the syringe.

One scientist grabs the syringe and takes off, pursued through a mall, and eventually he injects the contents into Martin Short playing normal guy Jack.  Tuck drives his submarine up to Jack's brain, where he can then talk to him and see what Jack sees. As Jack and Tuck interact, comedy ensues and conflicts are overcome while Tuck leads Jack to his ex-gf Lydia played by Meg Ryan.  Jack falls for her as they pretend Tuck's been kidnapped. Then the evil guys are in hot pursuit, with Vernon Wells as a robot-handed weirdo named Mr. Igoe, Robert Picardo as the bizarre "Cowboy" and Kevin McCarthy as the ringleader/boss dude.

The effects in this are obviously a little bit better, but also not shown as much.  There is kind of an emphasis on the adventure and comedy, which makes sense.  People weren't going to experience this for the first time now in the mid-late 80's.  The acting, the action, and the plot are all good and easy enough to get caught up in, and the movie moves along fast enough to make the two hour length not feel like a chore.

There was not, however, like a "defining moment" or anything and ultimately this film is largely forgettable.  It's a popcorn flick, a date movie, and one that will be forgotten in the sands of time.  I largely doubt that anyone besides someone who lived through or around this movie's timeframe will look it up in 30 years.

For solid enough entertainment value, some decent comedy, and a good enough feel to it, I'll award it 3 stars.  But it's definitely not like a must-see flick.