Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Once in a while, but not very often, small surprises pop up during the summer movie season amidst the highly publicized blockbusters.  'Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D' has been just as strongly promoted as the other big guns of the season, but the real surprise is that its actually kinda fun.  The promos make it look a tad goofy and that wouldn't be far from the truth, but there's something nostalgic about this latest adaptation of Jules Verne's classic novel.  The nostalgia doesn't come from one remembering the previous versions (including the one from '59 that featured Pat Boone), but one's own childhood.  Though this is based on one of the world's greatest stories, the tale is quite familiar and no different from your typical adventure film.  Yet there's an infectious charm within its execution as well as its trio of cast members lead by the always charming Brendan Fraser.

In this latest version, Verne's novel is used as a blueprint for a scientific theory which scientist Trevor Anderson (Fraser) has been desperate to prove all his life: that there is another world deep within the world.  His theories have made him a laughing stock in the scientific community, his research department is about to be shut down and he is haunted by the death of his older brother Max who disappeared a decade earlier searching for that world.  One weekend Trevor is stuck babysitting his brother's only son Sean (Josh Hutcherson) who is disinterested in any thing his uncle does until the discovery of his dad's copy of Verne's novel proves to be a coded map to that faraway land.

Within no time the pair are on a plane to Iceland and are joined on their quest by beautiful mountain guide Hannah (Anita Briem).   Her father like Max was a "Vernian" obsessed with the author's work and believed it to be a factual account of a miner who actually found this hidden world.  Before we know it, the trio discover Max's last known location and are soon plunging miles to the center of the earth by way of a volcanic tube.  Once they get there, the real fun begins.

The fantastic world they discover is filled with luminescent birds, a solar-type power source, different species of giant fish and oh yeah, a Tyrannosaurus rex that's pretty eager to make them its next meal.  The race against time begins when they discover that volcanic lava is rapidly raising the indoor temperature and they will perish in a matter of hours.  Hitching a ride back up the volcanic tube by means of hot gassing seems to be their best option.

Sounds absurd yes, but just about every adventure movie is filled with elements of absurdity and this film is no exception.  Fraser, Hutcherson and Briem not only have their thousand mile plunge broken by pouring rivers of water, but travel across a vast sea on a raft made of branches and even use the skull of a dinosaur as a boat.  One of my favorite sequences involves Huthcherson attempting to cross a bridge composed of magnetic rocks that appear to float in mid-air.  Sure, its hokey, but at the same time pretty fun.  These are the types of ridiculous and elaborate situations that boys have dreamed up when playing with their action figures on now as grown men we get to see it done with real people.

Fraser's performance is in the same vein as his role in 'The Mummy' franchise except he's added a slight bookworm touch and he's actually pretty good at it.  While he and Hutcherson are at odds over who has "dibs" on Briem, she's actually not the damsel in distress here, but the experience mountaineer who must often rescue them.

This film will only play in 3-D in a select number of theaters with digital projection capability.  The process is enjoyable and for once doesn't give you a headache, yet if you fail to experience it this way, you're not missing out on everything.  The visual f/x of this picture are handsomely done, so well in fact that I actually saw these environments as real locations and forgot that most of the time the actors probably performed in front of green-screens.  The film is a nice little escape, not just to a fantastic and mysterious world, but from the doldrums of our reality.