Innerspace

Last updated
Innerspace
Innerspaceposter2.jpg
Theatrical release poster by John Alvin
Directed by Joe Dante
Screenplay by
Story byChip Proser
Produced by Michael Finnell
Starring
Cinematography Andrew Laszlo
Edited by Kent Beyda
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Production
company
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date
  • July 1, 1987 (1987-07-01)
Running time
120 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$27 million
Box office$95 million (estimated)

Innerspace is a 1987 American science fiction comedy film directed by Joe Dante and produced by Michael Finnell. Steven Spielberg served as executive producer. It was inspired by the 1966 science fiction film Fantastic Voyage . It stars Dennis Quaid, Martin Short and Meg Ryan, with Robert Picardo and Kevin McCarthy, with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It grossed an estimated $95 million worldwide and won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, the only film directed by Dante to do so.

Contents

Plot

In San Francisco, down-on-his-luck U.S. Navy aviator Lt. Tuck Pendleton resigns his commission and volunteers for a secret miniaturization experiment. He is placed in a submersible pod and both are shrunk to microscopic size. They are transferred into a syringe to be injected into a rabbit, but the lab is attacked by a rival organization, led by scientist Dr. Margaret Canker, that plans to seize the experiment and steal the miniaturization technology.

Experiment supervisor Ozzie Wexler, knowing their intentions, escapes with the syringe. A chase ensues with one of Canker's henchmen, Mr. Igoe, which ends at a nearby shopping mall with Igoe shooting Ozzie. In a last-ditch effort to stop the experiment from falling into the rivals' hands, the wounded Ozzie injects Tuck and the pod into an unsuspecting passerby - Jack Putter, a hypochondriac Safeway grocery clerk who is exploited by his boss and belittled by Wendy, a superficial co-worker he has a crush on.

On regaining consciousness, Tuck is unaware of what has happened and believes he has been injected into the rabbit. After attempts to radio the lab are unsuccessful, he navigates the pod to the optic nerve and implants a camera so he is able to see what the "host" sees. Realizing he is inside a human, he makes contact by attaching another device to Jack's inner ear, enabling him to talk to Jack. He explains that the pod has only a few hours' supply of oxygen and needs his help in order to extract him by going back to the lab.

At the lab, the scientists explain to Tuck and Jack that the other group stole one of two computer chips that are vital to the process. Their mastermind is Victor Scrimshaw. His henchmen include Canker, Igoe, and "The Cowboy".

Jack contacts Tuck's estranged girlfriend, Lydia Maxwell, a reporter who has had dealings with The Cowboy. They learn that he plans to buy the computer chip from Scrimshaw and stake out his hotel. After following him to a local nightclub Lydia allows him to pick her up as Jack encounters Wendy, who, thinking he's been living a double life, shows an interest in him. Jack follows The Cowboy and Lydia back to the hotel, where he knocks The Cowboy unconscious and Tuck uses the pod's equipment to control Jack's face muscles, altering his features so he looks like The Cowboy. Lydia and Jack, posing as The Cowboy, meet with Scrimshaw to steal the chip from him. However, as they are about to take possession of it, Jack's nervousness overrides the transformation of his face, exposing the scam. Igoe captures him and Lydia and takes them to their laboratory. While imprisoned, Jack and Lydia share a kiss, which, unknown to them, transfers Tuck into Lydia's body through their saliva. Once taken to the laboratory, the criminals shrink Igoe and inject him into Jack to locate Tuck, kill him, and obtain the other chip that is attached to the pod.

After Igoe has been injected, Jack and Lydia free themselves and order everyone in the laboratory, including Scrimshaw and Canker, into the miniaturization device at gunpoint. However, not knowing how to operate it, they accidentally and unknowingly shrink everyone to half their original size while trying to retrieve the chip. Tuck, now inside Lydia, finds a growing baby and realizes that she is pregnant with his child. By going to her eardrum and playing their song (Sam Cooke's "Cupid"), he is able to alert them what has happened. Jack and Lydia kiss again to transfer him back. They frantically drive back to the lab in order to enlarge him, not realizing that the shrunken Scrimshaw and Canker have escaped and are hiding in the back seat. While they attempt to subdue Jack and Lydia, Igoe locates Tuck in Jack's esophagus and attacks him. Tuck disables Igoe's craft and the latter is killed when Tuck drops him into Jack's stomach after agitating Jack's anxiety to increase his stomach acid.

Back at the lab, with only minutes of supplemental oxygen left in the pod, Jack follows Tuck's instructions to eject it from his lungs by making himself sneeze due to his hairspray allergy. Tuck and the pod are successfully enlarged, and he is reunited with Lydia and finally gets to meet Jack in person. At Tuck and Lydia's wedding, held at Wayfarers Chapel, Jack is Tuck's best man. Tuck is seen wearing the chips from the experiment as cufflinks. When they climb into the limousine, it is revealed that The Cowboy is the driver and the shrunken Scrimshaw and Canker are hiding inside a suitcase in the trunk. Now confident and in control of his life, Jack recognizes The Cowboy and tells his doctor that he's cured, tells Wendy she has no chance with him, and informs his manager that he quits; he then jumps into Tuck's vintage 1967 Mustang, pursuing the limousine to rescue the newlyweds.

Cast

In addition, the film's director, Joe Dante, has an uncredited cameo as a Vectorscope employee, while Short's SCTV cast mates Joe Flaherty and Andrea Martin have cameos as waiting room patients. Chuck Jones and Rance Howard appear briefly as grocery shoppers in one scene.

Production

The film began as an original script by Chip Proser, who called it "basically a rip off of Fantastic Voyage . My idea was that the big guy was up and moving around and could react to what was going on inside." The script was optioned by Peter Guber at Warner Bros. in 1984. Guber offered the script to Joe Dante who turned it down. [2] Guber then had the script rewritten by Jeffrey Boam as a comedy. Boam says "The idea was kind of ridiculous, which was a person miniaturized and put into someone else's body. That's all I kept from the original script. They originally thought it might be Michael J. Fox inside Arnold Schwarzenegger's body. I actually kept turning it down, and they were persistent and kept coming back to me." [3]

According to Dante, Boam "approached it ... from the concept of what would happen if we shrank Dean Martin down and injected him inside Jerry Lewis." [4] Dante says that Steven Spielberg had become involved on the project as an executive producer and he may have been responsible for the comedy. [4] "It was such a goofy idea that there were no limits to it," said Boam. "I felt I could do anything, and so the script I wrote was very loony and far out there but everybody loved it. Dick Donner, Joe Dante, John Carpenter and even Steven Spielberg wanted to do it. So when Steven wanted to do it, Warners thought I was a God and any amount of money it would take to do the movie they would spend. Steve ultimately decided he only wanted to produce so Joe came along and really latched on to the idea." [3]

Quaid's role was originally envisioned to be played by an older actor but then they decided to make the character younger. [4] Dante recalled during filming scenes where Quaid and Short's characters interacted, "Dennis would be on the set in a booth, so the interaction was really happening. Dennis would hew to the script a little more than Marty. After you got a scene in the can, he'd beg for more takes, in the voice of Katharine Hepburn, which was hard to resist." [5]

Dante says Spielberg would "protect you from the studio and sometimes from the other producers. It was a very filmmaker-friendly atmosphere over there [at Amblin]. You got all the best equipment and all the best people and all the toys you wanted to play with. Plus you had somebody on your side who was also a filmmaker and they knew exactly what you were talking about when you had a problem or you had a question." [4]

"It's a dumb, stupid comedy, which is exactly what people need in the summertime," said Quaid. "It's very idiotic and I love it. We encounter every dumb, stupid cliché in the book. Leave your brain at home and you'll have a good time." [6]

Meg Ryan met Quaid on set and they later married. [4]

Awards

Reception

Box office

The film grossed $25.9 million in the United States and Canada, [7] generating $14 million in theatrical rentals. [8] Internationally, it grossed $32.7 million in its first 37 days and was expected to gross $75 million ($30 million in rentals). [9] It eventually returned $28 million in rentals, for a worldwide total rentals of $42 million [8] and a worldwide gross in the region of $95 million against a budget of $27 million. [10]

Critical response

The film had a positive reception from critics. [11] [12] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 82% of 44 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.8/10.The website's consensus reads: "A manic, overstuffed blend of sci-fi, comedy, and romance, Innerspace nonetheless charms, thanks to Martin Short's fine performance and the insistent zaniness of the plot." [13] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. [14]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4, stating "Here is an absurd, unwieldy, overplotted movie that nevertheless is entertaining - and some of the fun comes from the way the plot keeps laying it on". Proser later said, "I never actually have been able to sit through it all at once. They don't pay me to watch this crap. Like H. L. Hughgly, I wear a mask to cash the check." [15]

Joe Dante later said the film "was a hit on video. It was one of the first big videos, and it was discovered on video, basically. Although audiences liked it in theaters—when I went, they were in stitches—the ad campaign was so terrible for that movie. It was just a giant thumb with a little tiny pod on it. You couldn't tell that it was a comedy—you couldn't tell anything—and it had a terrible title, because we could never figure out a better one. And the studio botched the selling of it. I mean, they liked the movie, and they tried to reissue it, even, with a different campaign, and it still bombed." [16]

"It's been looked back on as if it was some great success whereas, in fact, it was pretty much a disappointment in its day," he said. [4] Dante later called the film "probably the movie that I had made up to then that was the closest to my intention. As a result, I was very happy with it. When I look at it today I still think it's a tremendous amount of fun." [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Midnight Cowboy</i> 1969 film directed by John Schlesinger

Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted by Waldo Salt from the 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy. The film stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, with supporting roles played by Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Salt and Barnard Hughes. Set in New York City, Midnight Cowboy depicts the unlikely friendship between two hustlers: naïve prostitute Joe Buck (Voight) and ailing con man Rico Rizzo (Hoffman), referred to as "Ratso".

<i>Total Recall</i> (1990 film) 1990 film by Paul Verhoeven

Total Recall is a 1990 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven, with a screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, and Gary Goldman. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, and Michael Ironside. Based on the 1966 short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick, Total Recall tells the story of Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger), a construction worker who receives an implanted memory of a fantastical adventure on Mars. He subsequently finds his adventure occurring in reality as agents of a shadow organization try to prevent him from recovering memories of his past as a Martian secret agent aiming to stop the tyrannical regime of Martian dictator Vilos Cohaagen (Cox).

<i>Small Soldiers</i> 1998 film by Joe Dante

Small Soldiers is a 1998 American action comedy film directed by Joe Dante. It stars Kirsten Dunst and Gregory Smith, along with the voices of Frank Langella and Tommy Lee Jones. It depicts two factions of toys which turn sentient after mistakenly being installed with a military microprocessor, in turn putting two families in danger when one faction turns lethal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Quaid</span> American actor (born 1954)

Dennis William Quaid is an American actor. He is known for his starring roles in Breaking Away (1979), The Right Stuff (1983), The Big Easy (1986), Innerspace (1987), Great Balls of Fire! (1989), Dragonheart (1996), The Parent Trap (1998), Frequency (2000), The Rookie (2002), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), In Good Company (2004), Flight of the Phoenix (2004), Yours, Mine & Ours (2005), and Vantage Point (2008). Quaid received a Golden Globe Award nomination for his role in Far from Heaven (2002). In 2009, The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

<i>The Dead Zone</i> (film) 1983 film by David Cronenberg

The Dead Zone is a 1983 American science-fiction thriller film directed by David Cronenberg. The screenplay, by Jeffrey Boam, is based on the 1979 novel of the same title by Stephen King. The film stars Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom, Martin Sheen, Anthony Zerbe, and Colleen Dewhurst. Walken plays a schoolteacher, Johnny Smith, who awakens from a coma to find he has psychic powers. The film received positive reviews. The novel also inspired a television series of the same name in the early 2000s, starring Anthony Michael Hall, the pilot episode of which borrowed some ideas and changes used in the 1983 film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Picardo</span> American actor

Robert Alphonse Picardo is an American actor. He is best known for playing the Cowboy in Innerspace, Coach Cutlip on The Wonder Years, Captain Dick Richard on the ABC series China Beach, the Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager and Richard Woolsey in the Stargate franchise. He is a frequent collaborator of Joe Dante and is a member of The Planetary Society's Board of Directors.

<i>The Burbs</i> 1989 film by Joe Dante

The 'Burbs is a 1989 American black comedy film directed by Joe Dante, and starring Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman, Wendy Schaal, Henry Gibson, and Gale Gordon. The film was written by Dana Olsen, who made a cameo appearance in the film.

<i>Caddyshack II</i> 1988 film by Allan Arkush

Caddyshack II is a 1988 American sports comedy film and a sequel to the 1980 film Caddyshack. Directed by Allan Arkush and written by Harold Ramis and PJ Torokvei, it stars Jackie Mason, Robert Stack, Dyan Cannon, Dina Merrill, Jonathan Silverman, Brian McNamara, Marsha Warfield, Paul Bartel, and Randy Quaid with cameo appearances by Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. It tells the story of a wealthy and widowed real estate developer who goes up against Bushwood County Club's snobbish president in a golfing tournament.

<i>Lethal Weapon 2</i> 1989 American film directed by Richard Donner

Lethal Weapon 2 is a 1989 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Richard Donner, and starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Joss Ackland, Derrick O'Connor and Patsy Kensit. It is a sequel to the 1987 film Lethal Weapon and the second installment in the Lethal Weapon film series.

<i>Lethal Weapon 3</i> 1992 American film directed by Richard Donner

Lethal Weapon 3 is a 1992 American buddy cop action film directed by Richard Donner and written by Jeffrey Boam and Robert Mark Kamen. The sequel to Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), it is the third installment in the Lethal Weapon film series and stars Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, and Stuart Wilson.

<i>Lethal Weapon 4</i> 1998 American film directed by Richard Donner

Lethal Weapon 4 is a 1998 American buddy cop action film directed and produced by Richard Donner, and starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock, and Jet Li. It is the fourth installment in the Lethal Weapon film series. It is the last film in the series directed by Donner before his death, and the latest to be released theatrically.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Dante</span> American filmmaker (born 1946)

Joseph James Dante Jr. is an American film director, producer, editor and actor. His films—notably Gremlins (1984) alongside its sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)—often mix the 1950s-style B movie genre with 1960s radicalism and cartoon comedy.

<i>Wyatt Earp</i> (film) 1994 biographical western drama film

Wyatt Earp is a 1994 American epic biographical Western drama film directed and produced by Lawrence Kasdan, and co-written by Kasdan and Dan Gordon. The film covers the lawman of the same name's life, from an Iowa farmboy, to a feared marshal, to the feud in Tombstone, Arizona that led to the O.K. Corral gunfight. Starring Kevin Costner in the title role, it features an ensemble supporting cast that includes Gene Hackman, Mark Harmon, Michael Madsen, Bill Pullman, Dennis Quaid, Isabella Rossellini, Tom Sizemore, JoBeth Williams, Mare Winningham and Jim Caviezel in one of his earliest roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Boam</span> American screenwriter and film producer

Jeffrey David Boam was an American screenwriter and film producer. He is known for writing the screenplays for The Dead Zone, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Innerspace, The Lost Boys, and Lethal Weapon 2 and 3. Boam's films had a cumulative gross of over US$1 billion. He was educated at Sacramento State College and UCLA. Boam died of heart failure on January 26, 2000, at age 53.

<i>The Phantom</i> (1996 film) Film by Simon Wincer

The Phantom is a 1996 superhero film directed by Simon Wincer. Based on Lee Falk's comic strip The Phantom by King Features, the film stars Billy Zane as a seemingly immortal crimefighter and his battle against all forms of evil. The Phantom also stars Treat Williams, Kristy Swanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Remar and Patrick McGoohan.

<i>The Detective</i> (1968 film) 1968 crime film starring Frank Sinatra

The Detective is a 1968 American neo-noir crime drama film starring Frank Sinatra. Directed by Gordon Douglas and produced by Aaron Rosenberg, it is based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Roderick Thorp.

<i>Pandorum</i> 2009 film by Christian Alvart

Pandorum is a 2009 science fiction horror film directed by Christian Alvart, produced by Robert Kulzer, Jeremy Bolt and Paul W. S. Anderson, and starring Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster. Travis Milloy wrote the screenplay from a story by Milloy and Alvart. The film's title is a fictional slang term for a form of psychosis caused by deep space and triggered by emotional stress, leading to severe paranoia, delirium, and nosebleeds. Pandorum was released on 25 September 2009 in the United States, and on 2 October 2009 in the UK. The film was poorly received and a box office flop.

<i>The Square Jungle</i> 1955 film by Jerry Hopper

The Square Jungle is a 1955 American film noir drama sport film directed by Jerry Hopper and starring Tony Curtis, Pat Crowley and Ernest Borgnine.

<i>Reagan</i> (2024 film) Film by Sean McNamara

Reagan is a 2024 American biographical drama film directed by Sean McNamara and written by Howard Klausner, based on Paul Kengor's 2006 book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. The film stars Dennis Quaid as President Ronald Reagan, Penelope Ann Miller, Mena Suvari, Kevin Dillon, David Henrie, and Jon Voight.

<i>The Hill</i> (2023 film) Film directed by Jeff Celentano

The Hill is a 2023 American biographical sports drama film about baseball player Rickey Hill overcoming a physical handicap in order to try out for a legendary major league scout. It was directed by Jeff Celentano from a screenplay by Angelo Pizzo and Scott Marshall Smith. It stars Dennis Quaid, Colin Ford, Joelle Carter, Randy Houser, Jesse Berry, Bonnie Bedelia, and Scott Glenn.

References

  1. ↑ "Neil Ross | Actor, Additional Crew, Soundtrack". IMDb . Archived from the original on 2024-01-30. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
  2. ↑ Lambie, Ryan (12 January 2017). "The Underrated Brilliance of Joe Dante's Innerspace". Den of Geek.
  3. 1 2 Ferrante, A. C. (1 May 2013). "Exclusive Interview: The Last Crusade of Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam". Assignment X. Archived from the original on 19 January 2018. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Joe Dante Discusses Innerspace". Cinema Retro.
  5. ↑ Kennyaug, Glenn (August 3, 2016). "Joe Dante: 'Gremlins' Director Reflects on His Biggest Hits" . The New York Times .
  6. ↑ Kempley, R. (July 1, 1987). "Dennis Quaid, poised for takeoff; after years of big misses, the actor looks for a hit". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on February 7, 2019. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Innerspace". Box Office Mojo . IMDb . Retrieved 2023-01-15. OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  8. 1 2 "Foreign Vs. Domestic Rentals". Variety . January 11, 1989. p. 24.
  9. ↑ McCarthy, Todd (January 20, 1988). "Warner Bros. Intl. Keeps Rolling; Posts $148-Mil In O'seas Rentals In '87; Some Markets Untapped". Variety . p. 7.
  10. ↑ Harmetz, Aljean (September 9, 1987). "Summer Movies Set a Record" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on April 17, 2021. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  11. ↑ Benson, Sheila (1987-07-01). "Movie Reviews : Taking In the Sights of Inner and Outer Junkets: Hilarious and Inventive Trip to 'Innerspace'" . Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 2021-03-10. Retrieved 2010-12-28.
  12. ↑ Corliss, Richard (1987-07-13). "Cinema: A Funny, Fantastic Voyage INNERSPACE". Time . Archived from the original on April 8, 2008. Retrieved 2010-12-28.
  13. ↑ "Innerspace". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media . Retrieved 2023-01-15. OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  14. ↑ "Innerspace". Metacritic . Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  15. ↑ Interview with Chip Proser (Adopt a Writer) Archived 2024-03-26 at the Wayback Machine , by Paul William Tenny; at MediaPundit.net; published February 18, 2008; retrieved March 26, 2024
  16. ↑ Lambie, Ryan (20 September 2010). "Joe Dante interview: The Hole, Gremins [sic] 3 and marketing Innerspace". Den of Geek.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.