Rated: PG
Runtime: 1 hr, 32 mins
Cast:
- Brendan Fraser
- Anita Briem
- Josh Hutcherson
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Review - "Journey to the Center of the Earth"
Reviewer: Charise Payne
Rating:
Usually when you go into a movie, you have a sense of if you are going to like it or not. For Journey to the Center of the Earth, I had no clue. The trailers looked lame, but at the same time, it was a 3-D film with a huge budget. How bad could it be? Well, I am happy to say that I loved it. It is the perfect film to take your kids along and enjoy two hours of mindless fun.
I will completely agree with those that say the film is impossible, but aren't most films? Good films come from imagination and hard work, and this film has both of these. The script was weak, but the e-ticket ride made that flaw forgettable.
Brendan Fraser plays Trevor Anderson, a specialist in tectonic physics. Until a few years ago, he ran a lab studying geological movements with his brother Max, who disappeared while on an expedition.
Trevor has agreed to spend two weeks with his brother's son Sean (Josh Hutcherson) while Sean's mother gets them moved and settled into their new home. Trevor and Sean hardly know each other, and their connection is shaky at best. The one thing that brings them together is their love for Sean's father, Max. When Sean's mother gives Trevor a box of Max's old things, it begins to bring up old memories of Max, and why he was loved so much. Sean starts to see his father in a new light, and he and Trevor start to bond.
As they keep rifling through the box, they find Max's favorite book, Jules Verne's The Journey to the Center of the Earth. While thumbing through the pages, Trevor finds tons of notes and markings. He realizes that his brother had used the book as a corner stone to their research. Each area they studied in the lab directly correlated to the book. It is then that Trevor figures out that his brother believed the book was fact, not fiction, and that the book was a map to the center of the earth. And more importantly, the expedition his brother took to Iceland (the place the book says is where the access holes which lead to the center of the earth are concealed) meant he found the entrance into the center of the earth, and that Max could still be alive.
Trevor and Sean jump on an airplane to Iceland and meet up with a mountain guide, Hannah Ásgeirsson (Anita Briem), who takes them to the last location Max was studying. While on the mountain, they get caught in a lightning storm and take refuge in a cave. The cave collapses, and they are forced to find another way out. As luck would have it, that exit is also the entrance into the center of the earth.
The film does have a few issues. Everything seemed to come so easy, and there was no conflict. The guy got the girl at the end, yet there was no romance along the way. And the way they got out of the center of the earth would have killed them in real life. But it was a movie designed for families, and the kids who I saw it with loved it.
This film was a blast! One of the great parts of this movie was its filming; it was shot in digital 3-D so all of the stunts, rollercoaster rides, and flying objects came rushing at you, causing you to jump and squeal at all the right moments. It was the closest thing to a real roller coaster I have ever experienced in a movie theater, and I loved it. If you can go see it in that format, your kids will love you for it. It is the perfect way to spend a Saturday morning with your kids.
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