Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Veteran comedic actress Lily Tomlin really gets to show off her chops here by playing no less than three roles. The principal role is that of Pat Kramer, a suburban wife & mom who mysteriously starts shrinking one day due to overexposure to an abundance of chemicals. In short order, she becomes the talk of the town, even going on the Mike Douglas show. She also comes to be exploited by evil scientists who are bent on world domination. Charles Grodin is cast as the harried husband struggling to accept his wifes' diminishing size as a fact of life; Ned Beatty is Grodins' sleazy boss.Partly a spoof of the classic Richard Matheson story "The Incredible Shrinking Man", this wacky 1980s fantasy functions mainly as a satire of rampant consumerism. As such, it's far from being subtle, and is a little hard to stick with at first due to it being so chaotic. But Tomlin, never more appealing, is the glue to hold it all together. She's terrific; her other roles are neighborhood busybody Judith Beasley and her classic telephone operator character. Grodin is in fine form, and Beatty is a hoot. The villains are played by the likes of Henry Gibson, Elizabeth Wilson, and John Glover, and they're all good. Shelby Balik and Justin Dana are cute as Pats' kids. But the man who deserves a special shout-out is makeup effects ace and multiple Oscar winner Rick Baker, who hilariously, endearingly plays a gorilla named Sidney.Written by Jane Wagner, and directed by Joel Schumacher (his feature filmmaking debut), this was admittedly never quite as funny as this viewer would have liked, but it was still hard to dislike. It does work towards a priceless, farcical finale. The special effects are quite amusing throughout, and those color schemes in Pats' house are offbeat, to put it one way.Reasonably entertaining, overall.Six out of 10.

Fun fact, this was Joel Schumacher's directorial debut. Yep that's right, way before we got ultra campy, neon lit Batman movies we got this, a campy, excessively colourful romp based (of course) on the Richard Matheson novel 'The Shrinking Man'. Yeah I know exactly what you're thinking, I'd never heard of this movie either, well judging by the films poster it doesn't look like anybody gave it much hope frankly, holy cheeseballs!So I think we know what's gonna happen here don't we. An everyday woman leading an everyday life falls afoul of a bizarre accident that causes her to slowly shrink down to a microscopic size. In this case its not a nuclear/atomic bomb scenario, its not a mad experiment and its got nothing to do with potions and magic. In this movie the protagonist suffers from a serve reaction to an experimental perfume her husband is working on, along with various other household things. So yes...OK, it is about a weird experiment, but its not military based. Unfortunately despite the fact they have clearly tried to move away from the old formulaic notions that have surrounded previous movies like this, this new concept is really quite daft. Sure the entire notion of shrinking to the size of an ant is daft but...as a result of a perfume?? couldn't think of anything a bit better? What's even more ludicrous is the fact that despite it being a perfume/household products related accident and perfume/household products being a relatively innocent and unexciting plot device, they still manage to cram in a few nasty whitecoat scientist types because of course the perfume company gets taken over in part by dubious sources wanting to work out the shrinking mystery for their own dubious plans. Everything is entirely predictable of course, you know once Kramer starts to shrink their will be the media hype to content with, the humiliation, the rubbernecking etc...Along with that you know at some point evil people will try to kidnap her for their evil ways (obviously shrinking people around the world or their own armies), and there will be some kind of adventurous escape from a nasty old lab etc...Didn't really expect anything too mind blowing in all honesty, naturally this will take on many elements of the original source material, they have tried to go in a new direction, but I'm just not sure if this was the right way.I'm still not really sure what the colour scheme/palette was about here either. All the sets, costumes, cars, props, everything, is an array of soft, outlandish, pastel colours that range from anything and everything. Think 'Dick Tracy', 'Miami Vice' or the 50's suburban housing estate in 'Edward Scissorhands' but in really really extreme camp colours. The weird thing were the outfits everybody wears, its was like some kind of retro 50's, 70's, 80's mishmash with suits in emerald green with bright pink ties etc...I'm guessing Schumacher wanted to create some kind of timeless hybrid that has never existed, a fantasy America where everything is kinda perfect, but scratch beneath the surface and its actually just like reality. Another odd thing was the usage of Lily Tomlin as multiple characters. Now I'm assuming this was down to her comedic background as others have done the same thing, the problem is others have done it way better. The silly thing was you can clearly tell its Tomlin, there is no real effort to not make her look any different, so in that sense its not really funny or clever (an Eddie Murphy challenge this is not). I might add her various characters aren't exactly very different from each other...and did I mention she isn't funny?Effects wise the movie does hold its own well and this is mainly down to the old old use of large scale props and sets. Tomlin looks great within the oversized sets and the forced perspective illusion, it just never fails to win that old trick. Naturally there are some hokey bluescreen moments but that can't really be helped. The best thing about the movie effects wise is easily Rick Baker and his gorilla suit. Now if you know your movies and special effects wizards then you know Baker has a gorilla fetish, a fetish he explores deeply here. Not only is his suit excellent in detail and movement, but Baker actually plays the gentle giant too. Think the gorilla from 'Trading Places' only better. The only stupid thing about that (along with all the other stupid stuff), is at the end the Kramer family decide to keep the gorilla as a pet, because that won't cause any problems will it (do I see a gorilla based sequel with hilarious gorilla shrinking antics??..no).Yeah so this was a pretty mixed bag really. The visuals are undoubtedly lovely to look at in places, very colourful and cheerful, good designs and creativity, but it doesn't really make much sense why its like that. The comedy is so so, the action and adventure is so so, the acting is unsurprisingly so so despite having a darn good line-up of old stars, and the finale is too sickly. Everything gets wrapped up in a nice harmless bow with literately every character there to witness it because...I dunno. Why does she shrink so rapidly right at the end? and why or how does the chemical spillage bring her back to normal size?? Meh, its a family movie heavy on light-hearted tomfoolery and nothing more, don't question it.5/10

Lily Tomlin is Fantastic in this Role. You might as well Re name this The Incredible Sexy Shrinking Woman, the Smaller Pat gets the Sexier she is....Look how Beautiful Lily is in this movie....Really look at her. Remember this is a Pre 1990's sadly out of the closet Lily Tomlin. But I think of the Past Laugh in and her Specials. Lily is Great looking in this. Come on. Look at this and her. Beautiful SEXY and Barbie Doll size. I wish I was cast as her husband. The Incredible Shrinking Woman is Awesome and Sexy. This Movie is a Classic for fans of Lily Tomlin. Lily is Featured on the now Rare Mike Douglas show looking Sexy in a dress (Barbie Doll Sized)and everyone of us loves her.Overall a great Lily Tomlin movie. (I think her Best) many different roles. I Love Lily Tomlin in this role....I would love to be cast in the role as Vance.

A good idea that doesn't work: a sassy, sweetly-zonked wife and mother discovers to her surprise that all the household and sundry chemicals her advertising-executive husband brings home are making her shrink. Actually, this gloppy-looking comedy does manage to get off on the right foot, with playful and funny glimpses into Tomlin's home-life, but once she shrinks and crosses paths with ready-set villains (not to mention talk show host Mike Douglas...who sings!!), the movie frays and falls apart. It's badly photographed (one of the worst-looking movies of the 1980s--what were they thinking when they watched the dailies?) and allows star Tomlin too much room to stretch her comedic chops (playing kooky characters incognito, Lily is much friendlier and funnier just playing a quirky modern woman). A disappointment for Tomlin's fans, especially since the biggest laugh in the picture is delivered by a gorilla flipping the bird. ** from ****