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Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Cast: Brendan Fraser, Anita Briem, Josh Hutcherson.

Directed by Eric Brevig, adapted from Jules Verne's book.

Story: A journey. To the centre of the earth.

Running Time: 1hr 32 minutes.

UK Certificate PG.

 

Journey to the Centre of the Earth was, somehow, the first 3D movie I'd ever seen. On the strength of this, I'm not sure I'll bother with a second.

Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem can't find a decent plot no matter how deep they go. It was only a few months ago I was urging you to find a 3D-enabled cinema if you wanted to see Beowulf, but I'm having second thoughts about that advice now. They charge you an extra third to see the movie (nine quid as opposed to just under seven at the Basingstoke Odeon), which I guess is understandable given that you need the special glasses to see it, but I don't want to buy the bloody things, I just want to rent them for a couple of hours. There's no facility to return them for re-use at the end. Then there's the 3D experience itself. When things come out of the screen into your face, the effect is stunning - it's all you can do to resist waving your hand in front of your face to make sure there's nothing really there, and I involuntarily blinked every time this happened, even when I was expecting it. But it only works under very strict conditions:

He just wants someone to play with, it's lonely down there.

  • The object must be extremely close - if you were actually in the movie this translates to a couple of inches from your nose. This means that all the good effects are very contrived - making you think, "oh, they're doing the 3D thing again," which distracts you from the movie.
  • The object must be in the centre of the screen - when it moves to the side you get ghosting and the effect vanishes.
  • The object must be moving - no idea why, but it doesn't seem to work nearly as well on static images.

    • On top of all that, there's no graduation in an individual object - each person's nose, for example, looks exactly the same distance away as his ears - which you may think is small enough to be unnoticeable, but it's not. Everyone looks like cardboard cutouts, like a high tech episode of Mr Benn. It's pants.

    Go on, have a guess how they survive this 4000-mile fall. I bet you don't get it. And so to the story. I've never read Jules Verne, but everyone knows he's very highly regarded. Doc Brown in Back to the Future liked him, and that was a true story, such is my understanding. It's certainly a million times more likely than this drivel. If you've ever wondered what that big flaming sunny thing is in the sky then you'll have enough nous to recognise what utter cock they spout throughout. In a movie like, say, Indiana Jones, you can forgive it because it's such good fun, but this is so tired and derivative that you'll be hard pressed to stay awake. Once they've fallen to the centre of the earth (thousands of miles in about a minute) we should really be assuming that they're doomed ... but you know they're going to come up with some pish that saves them, because it's that sort of movie. If I were to tell you right now how they actually do it, you'd think I was having a laugh. Oh yes, and there are dinosaurs, did I mention that? The CGI's good on those, I have to say.

    Journey to the Centre of the Earth is fine for the kids - they should be wowed enough by the 3D and the dinosaurs. However, while Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E are still showing, you really have no reason to spend your money on this.

    I enjoyed this film: 2/5

    I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 3/5 (kids)

    Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 1/5

    To enjoy this film you should be: entranced by shiny things.

     

    Journey to the Centre of the Earth was released in the UK on 11th July 2008.