Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

November 16, 2008

Northwest Airlines Flight, Honolulu, HI to Seattle, WA

** / ****

By Scott Muoio

Jules Verne’s classic novel comes to computer-generated life in Eric Brevig’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Modern life parallels Vern’s fantastic tale when Professor Trevor (Brendan Fraser) and his nephew Shawn (a slightly annoying Josh Hutcherson) find themselves in Iceland chasing the macguffin of Trevor’s seismic research. After enlisting the help of Icelandic mountain guide Hannah (Anita Briem), the three find themselves in dangerous seismic circumstances before being hurtled through a lava tube to the earth’s core. There they discover a magnificent and dangerous world whose secrets are miraculously similar to those in Verne’s story.

Is it true? Was Vern’s novel a retelling of actual events? Before you can say, “oversized man eating venus fly trap” fiction becomes fact as the trio scurries to beat the ticking clock on total mantle meltdown.

As kid friendly, 3-D entertainment Journey is an adequately entertaining movie. Computer graphics are used liberally sometimes enhancing the look and feel of the action and other times degenerating into video game looking silliness. A journey at sea with hungry fish is fun and perilous. An Indiana Jones-esque mine car ride, on the other hand, is over-the-top dopey. Admittedly I laughed, I flinched, and I certainly groaned on more than one occasion. But with the actors taking things dead serious and trotting around without a hint of fear or concern it’s hard for a viewer not to grin and roll with the punches, too.

No doubt, Journey is a formulaic children’s adventure with nary a hint of ambition, but it is fun for what it is. As the feature presentation on my recent five-hour flight it did the job, sucking me into its world and then spitting me back out again, unchanged, unworried, and about as unenthusiastically satisfied as an airline passenger devoid of his tiny bag of mixed nuts could possibly be. And really, that’s about all I could expect or demand from a film that just wanted to be my friend for an hour and a half, nothing more, nothing less.

Director: Eric Brevig

Producer: Beau Flynn, Cary Granat, & Charlotte Huggins

Writer: Michael Weiss, Jennifer Flackett, & Mark Levin (Novel by Jules Verne)

Music: Andrew Lockington

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, & Anita Briem