Innerspace (1987)

Martin Short is back on television screens featuring in the new Disney+ streaming series 'Only Murders in the Building' alongside long-time comedic partner, Steve Martin. It got me to thinking though how Short like Martin has been a mainstay on American screens for nearly forty years from his break in Second City and then Saturday Night Live to his filmic role opposite Martin and Chevy Chase in the brilliant Three Amigos.

That film like the one I am writing about was released in 1987, and it earmarked Short as a comedic force to be reckoned with. Whereas, Martin was as cool as the other side of the pillow and Chase wanted to be the smartest and sexiest person in the room; Short was a different breed of comedian - a mimic and vaudevillian who could contort his face into any gurn, and deftly make you laugh without saying a word much like the legendary Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin.

Innerspace is one of those wonderful American original films that they just do not make anymore. Directed by Joe Dante, that conduit for science-fiction cinema in America who takes those small nuggets of ideas and creates majesty out of them, helped by the producer that is Steven Spielberg. Based upon the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, the film tells the story of Tuck Pendleton (Dennis Quaid) a Navy pilot who volunteers for a crazy experiment following a break-up with girlfriend Lydia (Meg Ryan) to be shrunk to the size of a microbe whilst in a small vessel and then injected into a rabbit, all in the name of science. However, upon the day of the experiment and after being shrunk, Tuck's laboratory gets raided by a villainous firm who want to kidnap the miniaturisation technology for themselves. Supervisor Ozzie Wexler knowing their intentions flees the scene with Tuck holed within a syringe, upon being chased Oz injects Tuck into the unknowingly Jack Putter (Short), a lowly supermarket clerk who is a hypochondriac and about to start a vacation.

Tuck soon realises that Jack is not the rabbit he hoped for, and upon learning that the limited oxygen supply is diminishing so begins a race against time for Jack to save Tuck whilst rekindling the relationship between Tuck and Lydia.

The film could have been the run of a mill science fiction throwaway fodder, yet throughout the 1980s especially during the summer blockbuster season you had films that took on a life of their own as they became cult classics or well regarded films from Batteries Not Included to Cocoon to Flight of the Navigator.

Those films had the benefit of a great ensemble cast, those familiar faces that bring comfort and solace to you none more so than those faces in Cocoon a mixture of Hollywood veterans - Hume Cronyn, Don Ameche- and up and comers, Steve Guttenberg and Brian Dennehy.

Innerspace featured three bright young stars - the matinee idol Dennis Quaid who like Kurt Russell has worked consistently and solidly for 40 years but at this stage of his career had not yet had the lead role to show his charisma and the role of Tuck Pendleton was a risk, he was for the majority of the film restricted to a box and had to carry that role mostly on his own when conversing with Short's Jack. Martin Short was from Saturday Night Live, a goofball but able to garner human emotions with his vulnerability and appeal. They were matched with America's sweetheart, Meg Ryan, this coming a year after her appearance in Top Gun and a year before her lightning in a bottle performance as the eponymous Sally in When Harry Met Sally. The director Dante, himself not long from the success of Gremlins had three stars at the start of their ascendancy and this very much helps the film.

For all of the stardom and good looks of Quaid and Ryan though, the star of the film is Short. His career-best performance is so impressive as his character goes on an arc from hypochondriac and meek mannered Jack to courageous Jack by the film's conclusion.

At the beginning of the film, Jack is in a psychoanalysis session where he tells a dream of having a gun pointed at him by an unhappy customer, he wakes up and soons causes chaos in the doctor's office due to his nervous neuroses. Following the literal injection of Tuck into him, Jack begins this reawakening of something inside of him and Tuck becomes a guardian angel or seemingly the strength within Jack he did not know he had, at Tuck's insistence he downs some vodka, dances uncontrollably and even punches out a villain. Jack hunts down the people who want to steal the technology, he tracks down Lydia, kisses Lydia and ultimately saves the day with a combination of bravado and new found resilience.

Once Tuck is returned to normal size in the nick of time, Lydia (who is pregnant) and Tuck marry with Jack as best man. The villains attempt to follow the newlyweds, yet Jack recognised an accomplice of theirs, 'The Cowboy' posing as a limousine driver. Jack commandeers a vehicle himself and chases after them to save the day again.

Short steals the film with his contorting face, quick one-liners and his believability as a man gaining new powers. On his small shoulders does the film rest, with Tuck essentially sidelined for much of the film contained within his capsule, Jack must be the thrust of the narrative engaging with antagonists and helming the plot to his advantage.

He is an unlikely hero which is in direct contrast to the bombastic 80s action films featuring the muscle bound behemoths of Sylvester Stallone's Rambo or Schwarzenegger's range. However, that is what makes the film so gratifying and pleasing to return to, Jack Putter is a man who finds the strength within to make the change for the better using the device of listening to that voice inside yourself, of course it took having it injected directly into him.

It is a shame that producers continued to cast Short as second fiddle in more films from the unheralded Three Fugitives (opposite Nick Nolte) to the Three Amigos, he was never given the chance to lead a film himself until Clifford in the 1990s when again he is supported by Charles Grodin.

In a decade full of memorable performances - Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, Bruce Willis as John McClane, Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly - which remain cemented in your consciousness, it is important to throw light on those that have been somewhat forgotten or lost in the weeds. 

Short (like Steve Martin) is having a twilight period of his career, some may think he is reborn. The truth is Martin Short has never gone anywhere, his greatness has always been apparent.