Movie · 1987 · Action, Comedy, Science Fiction · 2h · PG · English
Curator score: 4.9/10 (108.3K ratings)
An adventure of incredible proportions.
Overview
Test pilot Tuck Pendleton volunteers to test a special vessel for a miniaturization experiment. Accidentally injected into a neurotic hypochondriac, Jack Putter, Tuck must convince Jack to find his ex-girlfriend, Lydia Maxwell, to help him extract Tuck and his ship and re-enlarge them before his oxygen runs out.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.9/10
IMDb: 6.8/10
Letterboxd: 3.47/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
Metacritic: 66
TMDB: 6.8/10
Director
Joe Dante
Production
Amblin Entertainment, Warner Bros. Pictures, The Guber-Peters Company
Cast
Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Fiona Lewis, Vernon Wells, Robert Picardo, Wendy Schaal, Harold Sylvester, William Schallert, Henry Gibson, John Hora, Mark L. Taylor, Orson Bean, Kevin Hooks, Kathleen Freeman, Archie Hahn, Dick Miller, Kenneth Tobey, Joe Flaherty
Curator Review
Verdict
A fast, funny, and genuinely inventive 80s sci-fi comedy with standout practical effects, strong chemistry, and a delightfully oddball premise. It’s more playful than polished, but the charm, energy, and visual imagination make it an easy recommendation.
Best for
fans of high-concept 80s studio comedies
viewers who like practical effects and creature-feature ingenuity
people who enjoy goofy but sincere genre mashups
audiences who like Martin Short’s manic comic style
fans of Joe Dante’s offbeat, subversive sensibility
Skip if
you want hard sci-fi or serious stakes
you dislike broad slapstick and frantic performances
you prefer modern pacing and contemporary visual effects
you need a tightly logical plot
Overview
Innerspace is one of those gloriously weird studio movies that feels impossible to make now. The premise is absurd on paper, but the film commits to it with enough confidence, speed, and visual wit that it becomes a real crowd-pleaser rather than a novelty. Joe Dante keeps the tone buoyant and mischievous, and the effects work still has the tactile charm that makes 80s genre filmmaking so rewatchable.
Worth noting
Martin Short is the engine here, turning anxiety into a comic superpower, while Dennis Quaid gives the movie a breezy, charismatic center. Meg Ryan adds warmth and polish, helping the film land its romantic and emotional beats without slowing the momentum. The result is a movie that is silly, yes, but also surprisingly nimble and affectionate about its characters.
Bottom line
What lingers most is the movie’s sense of invention. It keeps finding new ways to escalate the joke, and the miniature-body conceit becomes a playground for set pieces, visual gags, and pure movie-magic ingenuity. It’s not a masterpiece of structure, but it is exactly the kind of imaginative mainstream entertainment that made 80s studio cinema feel adventurous.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Sean Fennessey (3.5★) · 473 likes
Martin Short has one pitch, but it’s a cutter.
Really wish we could get more coked-out studio execs greenlighting shit like this, BEETLEJUICE and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. A golden age for extremely weird nerds with good ideas for movies. All hail Joe Dante.
Joe (4.5★) · 270 likes
The Marvel Entertainment Group is currently flooding the marketplace with big scifi blockbusters that have quips, goofs, and maybe even some shenanigans, but most of the time no real comedy, no jokes, no gags (Shane Black excepted, naturally). Here we have plenty of all of the above, and with enough weird science-fiction concepts to power dozens of lesser entertainments. And yet I think the thing that will stick with me the longest is Meg Ryan smiling at Martin Short with two parts affection and one part apology at the end.
matt lynch (4★) · 256 likes
There's a hero inside you.
theriverjordan (3.5★) · 177 likes
Joe Dante’s most awarded film is also his most revolting. Apparently, Truffaut was onto something when he said film lovers are sick people.
Forget visiting aliens on another planet. There’s a different type of demented at hand when one is going inside the human body.
That’s the premise behind Dante’s one and only Oscar-winning (for visual effects) film, “Innerspace.” The movie stars Dennis Quaid as a washed-up aviator who signs on as the pilot for a miniaturization machine, which… more
Colin the dude (3.5★) · 170 likes
A glimpse into an alternate reality where Martin Short became a sex symbol.