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The Jock Inside Me. The opening credits discover the cosmos within a cocktail glass, the top-gun fête is crashed by the "grounded tomcat," and there's Dennis Quaid's sozzled grin for The Right Stuff gone to seed. The former Navy pilot is now a miniaturized jockey in a microscopic pod, the experiment is interrupted and he ends up in the bloodstream of a hypochondriac clerk (Martin Short). (The wounded scientist, who "tried to save my ass by injecting me into yours," has a touching demise at the mall surrounded by mascots.) His initial panic mollified by whiskey, the schmo waxes lyrical about all the "faraway places" the shrunken visitor must be coursing through: "The gastric mucosa... Intestinal villi... Pulmonary alveoli." Fleischer's Fantastic Voyage and Spielbergian gee-whiz are grist for Joe Dante's satirical mill, Tashlin's Caprice is a key mainstay for his effervescent view of Eighties Silicon Valley disputes. (As the arms dealer after the latest technology, Kevin McCarthy towers nefariously until he's cut down to ventriloquist-dummy size.) In the ensemble of looney tunes, Short's spastic inventiveness is matched by Robert Picardo as a shady fence in cowboy boots ("Who do you think introduced Velcro to the Persian Gulf?") and Vernon Wells in a dry Schwarzenegger burlesque with removable steel hand. A stream of saliva allows for a glimpse of Kubrick's Star Child in the womb of the intrepid journalist (Meg Ryan), a lake of stomach acid also has a vital role. "Congratulations, you just digested the bad guy." It ends with the happy fusion of hero and dweeb, as harmonious as Sam Cooke echoing through one's innards. With Fiona Lewis, Wendy Schaal, William Schallert, Henry Gibson, Harold Sylvester, John Hora, Mark L. Taylor, Dick Miller, and Kenneth Tobey.
--- Fernando F. Croce |