Good FX, Bad Plot

Journey 3D inferior to Jules Vern's original tale

The Rumpled Critic
By David Giarrizzo

Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D was a fantastic technological ride into the 3D world of future entertainment. Even some of the previews, including ones from Disney, had 3D titles and graphics. It was fun seeing such a technological breakthrough in CGI history. I felt like one of the kids kicking the back of my seat as the images zoomed back and forth from my peripheral vision to a three foot hologram before my eyes. I only wish I had seen Beowulf when it came out. Great fun, unfortunately, the story line was less than thrilling. Relying on the novelty appeal of the $2 Real D glasses, the Disney writers put this script on snooze control.

Completely abandoning the story of Jules Vern’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, the plot follows a premise that brings the story down to the level of another crappy Hollywood adventure/love story.

Verne's 1864 classic has many screen interpretations. Multiple theatrical and made-for-television versions have flowed from both sides of the Atlantic, including a Spanish version, an animated American TV series and an animated French film featuring, correspondingly, the voices of Ted Knight and Pierre Richard. But, for us Yankee baby boomers, none of these incarnations has succeeded in overshadow the kitsch memory of Henry Levin's 1959 film, which claims engaging Bernard Herrmann scoring, still-action dinosaurs and the soup-to-nuts casting of James Mason, Arlene Dahl and Pat Boone.

It’s an old family recipe that Uncle Walt wrote down before he had his head frozen and vaulted up. And goes like this: Take one reluctant hero, Trevor Anderson (played by Brendan Fraser of The Mummy franchise), a scientist continuing research on volcanic tubes left unfinished by his missing brother Max, a self-proclaimed "Vernanite" who believed the author's fictional maunderings to be the gospel truth.

Add one feisty nephew and son of his brother Max, Sean (played by Josh Hutcherson), Trevor hauls the boy to Iceland, where he hopes to get to the bottom of mysterious seismic disturbances charted by his brother.

Then, mix in a comely blond guide named Hannah (played by Anita Briem), whose late father was also adherent to Max's "Vernanite" science. (Verne himself might be amused to know that Hannah has been revised from the novel's Hans, a dramaturgical sex-change operation presumably implemented to provide an object of desire for both the hero and his gawking nephew).

Until a hiking mishap plummets the trio downward into a land of giant mushrooms and neon-lit birds, first-time director Eric Brevig (an FX champion from Total Recall and Pearl Harbor) teases the audience with a droll vaudeville of little 3-D stunts designed to demonstrate what the state-of-the-art Real D technology can do.

So, let us summarize what this one-and-a-half hour visual effects demo has in a plot.

Boy meets Dangerous Phenomenon. (Protagonist becomes aware of Antagonist)
Boy is saddled with Rebellious nephew. (Protagonist finds Sidekick)
Boy and Nephew hire Comely Guide and travel to Phenomenon. (Boy Meets Girl)
Boy and Nephew flirt with Comely Guide. (Boy Flirts with Girl)
Trio finds Phenomenon. ( Protagonist meets Antagonist)
Phenomenon blocks return path. (Antagonist, One Point)
Boy and Comely Guide succumb to Love. ( Boy Woos Girl)
Trio has deadline. (Battle between Protagonist and Antagonist)
Trio lives Happily Ever After. (Protagonist wins Battle)

Well, that’s it in a nutshell. Unless your theater has Real D technology, as the Fortuna Theater and no others have in Humboldt County, don’t bother going to see this. However, if you Parents want a place to drop your kids off for ninety minutes, this is the movie for them.

Grade: C

David Giarrizzo is the Scene Editor for the Humboldt Sentinel, as well as an unsigned musician living in Old Town Eureka. He can be reached at 667-3303 or by writing to
scene ~~AT~~ humboldtsentinel.com.