Innerspace, 1987.
Directed by Joe Dante.
Starring Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy.
SYNOPSIS:
Arrow Video continues to knock their releases out of the park with a new edition of Innerspace that features a solid 4K restoration, two new bonus features, and a physical booklet with several essays. Okay, maybe this movie isn’t worthy of inclusion in the Criterion Collection, but it’s nice to see Arrow give Criterion-like treatment to a movie that many of us fondly remember.
Would you call this one a minor classic? Yeah, I’d put that label on Innerspace, but that’s mostly due to me being a Gen Xer who loved the heyday of these kinds of movies in the 70s and 80s. There was something goofy and earnest about films like this one, especially with its special effects that feel very lo-fi by today’s standards.
Directed by Joe Dante, Innerspace is a nod (maybe more like a bow) toward the bonafide 1966 classic Fantastic Voyage. It stars Dennis Quaid as hotshot pilot Tuck Pendleton (such a great name), who volunteers for a secret miniaturization project that involves putting him in a submersible pod, shrinking both of them down, and injecting the pod into a rabbit.
When a rival corporation raids the lab to steal the technology, however, well, one thing leads to another and Safeway grocery clerk Jack Putter (another great name), played by Martin Short, ends up as the host for Tuck and his pod. There’s a ticking clock in the form of an oxygen supply that will run out in the pod, along with a MacGuffin consisting of a computer chip that’s vital to restoring Tuck and the pod to full size but which was stolen during the raid.
Jack and Tuck figure out how to communicate with each other, leading to plenty of scenes enabling Short and Quaid to play to their respective strengths, namely goofy physical humor and being a hard-ass. Meg Ryan is Tuck’s estranged girlfriend, Lydia Maxwell, a reporter who has a connection to one of the bad guy’s henchmen and can offer useful information to the pair during their quest.
Innerspace may not be as satisfying as, say, Back to the Future, but it has its merits, and it’s always a solid choice for me if I want to engage in a little nostalgic movie viewing. Arrow Video has done their usual excellent job with this one, commissioning a 4K restoration that looks great and a physical booklet with essays by critics Charlie Brigden, Michael Doyle, Josh Nelson, Jessica Scott, and Andrea Subissati, a guide to Dante’s stock company, and the original exhibitors pamphlet.
In terms of extras, Arrow also commissioned a new commentary track by film critic Drew McWeeny, which he clearly came prepared for with plenty of research, and a great retrospective documentary, Shrinkage: The Making of Innerspace, that runs close to an hour. The documentary serves up Dante, visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren, visual effects artists Bill George and Harley Jessup, and others looking back on the film.
The archival bonus features kick off with a cast and crew commentary from 2002 that has plenty of good info, including thoughts on the relationship between Dante and producer Steven Spielberg. You also get just under 44 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage spread across two featurettes, one culled from Dante’s own on-set footage and the other shot by Muren, who led the team that won an Oscar for this movie.
Finally, a storyboard gallery, a gallery of behind-the-scenes shots from Dante’s personal collection, a batch of production stills, a poster gallery, and the theatrical trailer round out the platter.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
