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Innerspace
Studio: Warner Brothers
Year: 1987
Rated: PG
Film Length: 120 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 16X9 Enhanced Widescreen (1.85:1)
An Adventure of Incredible Proportions
I seem to be saying this often about the crop
of recent Warner products, but these releases
over the next few week represent the core of
very popular titles that fans have been patiently
awaiting to be released over the past few years.
Innerspace ranks up there amongst the
most highly request as it remains one of the
funniest and innovative thrill ride movies ever.
Lieutenant Tuck Pendleton (Dennis Quaid) is a
hot-shot test pilot. He could have been something
big, but he's the type that can't follow the
rules or directions. Half the time he's getting
in trouble as a result of his drinking problems.
It's a wonder how a person like Tuck was chosen
to lead a very high classified experiment at
VectorScope Laboratories, a lab on the brink
of Miniaturization. The plan of the experiment is
to shrink a submersible pod down and inject it
into a bunny to see if the pod can make audio
and visual contact with the host organism.
The miniaturization is completed and Tuck's
pod is waiting in a syringe to be injected into
the bunny. At that very moment, security is
breached and a team of terrorists burst in, bent
on stealing the technology for themselves. This
leaves head scientist, Ozzie, running for his
life with syringe in hand.
Enter Jack Putter(Martin Short), a mild-mannered
SafeWay clerk who suffers from just about every
phobia imaginable. Jack's doctor insists he
take a vacation and avoid excitement. As Jack
finishes booking a relaxing cruise inside a mall,
he meets up with the fleeing scientist and is
injected with the syringe that contains the
miniaturized Tucker and the pod.
And this is just the beginning...
From hereon in, Innerspace becomes a
Fantastic Voyage with Tucker floating
through Jack's very nervous innards. As they
both escape the clutches of the terrorists that
are after them, Jack and Tuck take off and find
Lydia (Meg Ryan), Tuck's ex-girlfriend. Lydia is
a reporter and has been following a Western
technology dealer called "The Cowboy", who has
come to the U.S. for the miniaturization tech.
Innerspace boasts top-of-the-line special
effects (for its time), a zippy plot that hardly
ever falters, and enough physical and verbal
comedy to keep you laughing throughout.
How is the transfer?
You will be very happy to know that this highly
requested title looks pretty damn good on DVD.
That's the GOOD news. Picture is very clean and
clear with no blemish. The colors peak through
very well. Looking at my notes, I made several
references to the mall chase where the colors of
the animal costumes and clown suit came across
vividly. Even the red-headed lady at the cash
register never looked..uhm...more colorful than
she does here. The flesh tones also look very
natural. The day lit scenes look superbly clean,
but as the film goes into darker interior scenes
as well as those inside Jack's body, we are
introduced to the lowest levels of video noise
that don't become overly distracting. The only
scene that has questionable noise is where Jack
is in his doctor's office being examined.
I did mention GOOD NEWS. Now for the BAD NEWS.
While the picture transfer is very good, the
5.1 Digital track is lackluster as far as rear
effects go.
In a movie like this, you would hope that the
audio experience would be as strong as the visual.
While the front channels are very strong and full
of wonderful bass, it is the rears that never seem
to come alive. Any scene that involved any crowd
noise (such as in the mall) had no sense of
surrounding ambience. Even inside the human body,
there was no sound supplementing the rears. I
actually had to get up out of my couch and put
my ears to the surround speakers. At that point
I could hear the faintest sounds being sent to it.
Were the rear tracks mixed too low? Was there no
rear channel information in the original mix?
Thank goodness the front channels handle this
movie wonderfully, with some surprising effort
by the LFE channel that delivered some strong
booms once the pod was inside Jack. From the
low-end hums of the pod to the thumping beats of
Jack's heart, the subwoofer captured all of it
quite well.
Special Features
Warner didn't pack this DVD with any visual
extras that would interest those of us who are
interested in how the effects work was done.
Wasn't there any material available?!
What we do have is a full-length commentary
by Director Joe Dante, Producer Michael Finnell,
Co-Stars Kevin McCarthy and Robert Picardo and
Visual Effects Supervisor Dennis Muren.
Through the commentary, we learn that Innerspace
was a title everyone was looking to dump. Not
thinking of anything better, the title stuck.
Promoted as a shrunken Dean Martin being injected
into Jerry Lewis, the film was pitched to Warner
Brothers. Once we go into the lab, the commentary
makes a lot of jokes about some of the primitive
technology that was used in the film. Effects
Supervisor Dennis Muren used rubber life saver
type discs to represent the blood cells in Jack's
body. The footage looked so good that critic
Roger Ebert thought the film was using actual
medical footage. A medical supervisor was brought
on board, however, to make sure what was being
represented was legitimate. A "helmet cam"
was created for Martin Short to film the scenes
that were shown on the pod's video monitor out
of his eyes. In all, this is a very lively, fun
commentary by the core creative team involved in
the film.
A cast & crew filmography gives selected
film highlights of all the principal actors as
well as Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam and Director
Joe Dante.
One entire screen is dedicated to the 1988
Award that the film won.
Finally, the film's original theatrical
trailer, containing the indistinguishable
"Goonies" music is included.
Final Thoughts
"Take a shot of adventure", insists the trailer
for this film....and a shot of adventure it is!
Innerspace remains to this day a clever,
cute and engaging film thanks to Director Joe
Dante (Gremlins) who an instinct for slapstick
grotesqueness.
Though I had wished that the DVDs 5.1 audio
would have lived up to the quality of the video
transfer, I am thankful that the DVD looks this
good.
It's a definite purchase!
Release Date: July 9th, 2002
