Journey to the Center of the Earth
Dir. Eric Brevig, 2008
| Rated: PG (Special Edition: PG-13) | Writers | Starring |
| Runtime: 1 hr. 33 min. | Michael Weiss | Brendan Fraser |
| Producer: Beau Flynn, et al. | Jennifer Flackett | Josh Hutcherson |
| Production Company: Walden Media | Mark Levin | Anita Briem |
Reviewed by Robert Ring. 11.18.08
I'll give you one scene that might tell you all you need to know about Journey to the Center of the Earth: The three main characters, a geologist, Professor Trevor Anderson; his nephew, Sean Anderson; and a mountain guide, Hannah Ásgeirsson, are stuck beneath a mountain and have stumbled upon a railway system. With very few options before them, they take a ride in rail cart. The cart zips and swoops through a railway that would have served better as roller coaster tracks, and up ahead they see a gap in a bridge. What do they do? They speed it up, jump the gap, land perfectly on the tracks on the other side, and keep going. It is a fun scene for younger viewers but an essentially impossible one. Such is the way of Journey to the Center of the Earth, a lighthearted adventure film that often defies the laws of physics, common sense, and plausibility.
The film is not, technically speaking, a remake of Jules Verne's novel by the same name. The novel, in fact, shows up in the film and plays an important role in the plot. Of the three main characters, the main character is the geologist Anderson, who takes his nephew on a journey to investigate and hopefully prove an esoteric volcanic theory of his deceased brother's (his nephew's father), based on the assumption that everything Jules Verne wrote was actually true. After hiring Ásgeirsson as a mountain guide, they, along with Ásgeirsson, get trapped in a cave and, while looking for a way out, stumble upon the prehistoric world hidden far below the earth's surface even more fantastical than it is described in Verne's novel.
Never does the story ever try to be truly scientific. In fact, it violates so many laws of science and physics that it's laughable. Let me point out a few more impossibilities. Sean receives a phone call while in the center of the earth. Ásgeirsson sustains 115-degree Fahrenheit temperature without breaking a sweat (perhaps it's because she's a blonde, I don't know). My favorite of them all, though, is this: the characters at one point fall through the ground, free-fall for over a minute and a half, and survive because they hit a water-slide-like slope seconds before landing in a lake. No way. Now, let me say that these moments do not actually diminish the movie's verisimilitude. That is because it does not set itself up as as scientific or realistic move, just one that plays wildly with a vaguely scientific concept. The problem is that when events happen like those I have described, it works against the film's ability to create excitement because by the time we've seen them survive a few of those things, we know there's nothing that can so much as harm them. There is no real danger for our characters, and we therefore watch not to see if they'll make it but how.
The sci-fi premise of the film is used to create a colorful, adventurous experience, but this too does not quite work effectively. As far as its adventure elements go, Journey to the Center of the Earth does an okay job even if it is ultimately too juvenile for most to enjoy. Think of Indiana Jones. Now think of Indiana Jones with Brendan Fraser, killer fish, luminous blue birds, magnetically floating rocks a la Mario Bros., and candy-colored environments. It all becomes a bit too much. Throw in moments such as Prof. Anderson backhanding a giant carnivorous plant without even looking at it (he is a college professor, keep in mind) and sentimentality for its own sake, and it all becomes significantly too much. Let me put it this way: Little kids may be able to down entire bags of M&Ms and be happy, but at my age, doing so makes my stomach hurt. That's how this movie works. For most of us, it is enough to induce a diabetic coma.
For a movie in which geology professors look like Brendan Fraser, Icelandic mountain guides look like Anita Briem, and scholars take the works of Jules Verne as non-fiction, Journey to the Center of the Earth is not a poor execution of a concept. Its problem is that it was a poor concept in the first place. Kids will like it, I'm sure, but I also bet they'll forget about it in a year. Adults will find themselves incapable of tolerating many of the more implausible events, even though the film is not trying to be realistic. If you have a child that really wants to see some dinosaurs but is too young for movies like Jurassic Park ... I was going to say rent this movie for them, but you know what? Go buy King Kong (1933) or something instead. Children who develop sweet tooths early have a hard time learning to like vegetables. I say raise 'em on the classics. Then they can tell the good from the bad. Journey to the Center of the Earth, I guess, could be their dessert. But they have to eat their (giant-ape-themed) veggies first.
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