Journey to the Center of the Earth

Razor-toothed flying fish, ho-hum

2008

Review: August 19, 2008

Director: Eric Brevig

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Breim

Helllllooooooo … it's in 3-D!

THE SETUP:

Loose adaptation of the Jules Verne novel in which everything is pumped up for 3-D effect.

DISCUSSION:

So a friend of mine was pretty pumped to see this, because it's in 3-D, even though the story was probably terrible. Then the reviews said the 3-D was cute, but the story was terrible, so we didn't even bother going. Then I went with another friend and—well, we couldn't have known exactly HOW terrible the story was going to be. You know, the further I get from it, Beowulf is starting to look more and more like King Lear II. At least it had an actual story and characters.

Okay, so Brendan is Trevor, who has a dream that this guy is chased and eaten by a dinosaur. I believe the sole reason for this sequence is to give us a little dinosaur up front, since the story is going to concentrate mostly on him and his nephew now, and it's going to be a while before we get to the center of the earth. Anyway, so the guy we saw was Trevor's brother, who has been missing for 10 years. The scientific lab where Trevor works on continental something or other is about to be shut down. He goes home and remembers that his nephew Sean—son of the dead brother—is coming to stay with him for 10 days while his mother looks for a house in Ottawa. Mom has a box of stuff from the brother, one of which is the Verne novel of the title, which the brother has put a bunch of figures in, because "this was a textbook" for the brother. Trevor notices that some of the readings written in the book are the same as current thermal readings—and now, looking back, I have no idea what this information actually had to do with anything—but regardless, it's enough to get him and Sean to Iceland. We are not supposed to think about how much all of this costs or what they're supposed to be doing.

They meet the beautiful young [apparently she's 26, but she looks 16] daughter of some Icelandic dude working with the dead brother, and she's going to be their guide. They go up this huge mountain and have to run to escape an intense lightning storm that traps them in a cave. Yeah, it's just the sort of thing that happens all the time. In wandering around—God, I'm getting so bored summarizing this—anyway, eventually the floor falls away and they fall for ages until they're at—the center of the earth! Amazingly, at the bottom there's a whole thing of water coming UP, so they all land without a scratch! I must say that the 3-D shot of them in a huge pool of water, filled with bubbles, was the showstopper visual for me.

I forgot to mention that 13-year-old Sean arrived surly and glued to his PSP, but, this being a movie from Christ-friendly Walden Media, he soon puts his PSP down [and drops his sullen teen attitude] and takes up a simple yo-yo, at which he is immediately an expert. We then have to endure mucho horribly written teen-adult "banter," as the film tries to exploit any excuse to point long things right at the camera. We also find out that Sean's dad was a "Vernian," one who believed that Verne's novels were actually "scientific fact!" No mention is made of where this places other Verne novels—is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea true as well?

Oh, I forgot, before they actually fall to the center of the earth, we have this sequence in rail coal cars in the underground mine. I didn't know that miners build huge hills and twists and curves on massive sets of tracks—why, very much like a roller coaster!—for their ore to go through. Seems wildly impractical to build a huge ride that is only mean to be enjoyed by rocks, but whatever. THEN they fall. They actually have a fairly lengthy conversation as they fall. You will notice, once they reach the bottom and drag themselves out of the water, that they are quite cheerful and lighthearted for being trapped several hundred miles beneath the surface of the earth with no hope of escape. Well, no sense in worrying, huh?

So they start wandering and wondering at the amazing reality of everything here, and soon I was hoping that they would encounter some man-eating dinosaurs, and was wishing they had brought along a few extra characters that would be available to be early victims. No luck. So they find Sean's Dad's house, and his body, and his diary, which Trevor just happens to have found a beautiful passage in regarding how much he loved Sean, why, just seconds after picking the book up in the first place. They give the dead brother a Christian burial, then realize that they need to cross the ocean. Yeah, the underground ocean, lit by the underground sun, which is subject to underground storms at sea. It all makes sense. It is apparently 95 degrees—though our heroes are not sweating [it's a dry heat]—and they whip together a large raft with a sail in just a few hours! Teamwork—pass it on.

Not long into their sea voyage they find that they are being attacked by fish with five-inch needle-like teeth that can horizontally launch themselves about forty feet out of the water. This might be a cause of concern to YOU, but these positive folks keep a smile on their face and a song in their heart while fighting off the deadly flying fish. They pick up sticks and such and essentially hit the fish like baseballs, all the while making cheerful banter! An attack by lethal launching fish can be such a gay old time! You can be sure that at least five of them fly right out at the camera. Then, Sean gets a cell phone call from his mom—that's right, reception hundreds of MILES below the surface of the earth is crisp and clear! And you know, it is SO CONSIDERATE of those killer fish to refrain from attacking Sean while he's talking to his mom. They're like "Dude, hold up—this guy's on the PHONE." Needless to say, this sequence may, more than anything else in the movie, have you holding your temples, questioning the entire course of your life thus far.

By the time the temperature has reached 115 degrees, our heroes are sweating lightly. They then have to deal with nine-foot-tall venus flytraps, which Trevor just punches as though they were dudes at the bar. They look like giant nasty vaginas that DO indeed want to eat you, but I'm sure you're well aware that we are in a subtext-free zone. Trevor pulls one of them out of the ground, and then—what? The rest decide to stop attacking? They vanish? We'll never know, but clearly their two minutes is up, and we're onto the next thing, in this case, floating rocks. These were the ones featured on the poster, with little Sean and Hannah clinging to them, determined expressions on their faces. Thing is, in a still image, you don't know that the rocks are floating, causing me to stand in the subway, looking at the poster and puzzling: "Shouldn't they be a little more concerned that they are plunging to their doom?" Then they finally haul the old T-Rex out, and he runs around a while before falling down another endless chasm. Now, if they're at the center of the earth, and the dinosaur falls down another huge chasm, does that mean he's returning to the SURFACE of the earth?

Then they just hop in their convenient dinosaur skull-boat, ignite a huge geyser, and shoot miles upward through a narrow tunnel. They emerge in Italy. There's enough time back home to threaten/set up a sequel, and that's it.

Okay, I know that this is just eye candy aimed at kids under the age of ten who are mentally retarded [apparently], but does it have to be THIS BAD? I don't know that the story is any worse than hundreds of other movies [hundreds of other AWFUL movies] out there, but the whole thing is significantly ruined by the fact that the characters just have no reaction to anything. Someone somewhere obviously decided that this was going to be aimed at very young kids, and the only way to have dinosaurs and venus flytraps and real peril was just to have the characters take it all like it presents the same threat level as a bunch of kids with water balloons. If the characters would just ENGAGE with what they're seeing, WE'D have a reason to engage in it, but not here. I just perused an interview with the director where he says: "You try and make all of the actions that the people do seem authentic. And if the people seem real, and their reactions to what's going on are genuine, you go, "Yeah, if that were me there, that's what I would say," or, "I'd be yelling just like them." To put it politely, this dude is ON MARS. There IS water on Mars—and it's in his head.

This is part and parcel with the fact that this is from Walden Media, creators of vaguely Christian entertainment [the Narnia movies are from them] and this is stunk up with the air of perfect blandness passing for "wholesomeness," and a general air of consumerism. Products ALWAYS work—cell phones work MILES under solid rock! No one [not even scientists whose programs are being shut down] has a problem plunking down a few thousand for an additional last-minute trip to Iceland. Teens have the latest video games, and know more about technology than adults. And of course the movie itself is the ultimate disposable product, here to do nothing but glitter before your eyes for a while before you forget it. The only difference between this and a kaleidoscope in terms of entertainment AND emotional impact is that this lasts 90 minutes.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?

Not really. And once it's out of the theater and no longer in 3-D, avoid it like poison.