Reise zum Mittelpunkt der Erde

But I have to say, it takes a set of balls the size of ostrich eggs to make a movie and put a title on it that belongs to an entirely different story. Jules Verne is spinning in his grave on this one, believe me--this isn't even vaguely in line with the book. None of the characters even have the same name, fer crying' out loud! There's tribes of lizard men and humans living down there, AND THE HUMANS SPEAK English!!

I did find the movie entertaining however, my only real issue with it is blatantly stealing the name of one of the greatest science fiction fantasies ever written in history and dropping it on another story in the blatant interest of tricking people to come in and think that they're about to witness the real thing. For God's sake, they even credit Jules Verne!!! For what, writing the title? On the up side, the women are all beautiful, but on the other hand, the men don't look like any of them, at least the subterranean dwellers, have bathed in years. What IS that stuff on them, anyway, if not dirt.

I hear that they're remaking Plan 9 From Outer Space next year, and they're going to call it Gone With the Wind.

Plot

Remake of Jules Verne's classic story finds adventurers seeking a mysterious hidden land. They are joined by the wife of another man, who had previously gone on a similar expedition and disappeared.

Cast

Treat Williams and Jeremy London are a talented pair and make for some good casting. Bryan Brown, less so. Petra Yared however was a wonderful surprise.

Verdict

How many versions of this have there been? Ever since the original back in 1959 we seem to have had a fair few, varying budgets, varying quality. So where does this Hallmark version sit on the scale? Not great, not great at all.

Now to be clear I like Williams I think he's a great b-movie leading man and both the London twins have been in plenty of great films so I consider myself a fan. So here, they had the cast to pull this off.

What didn't they have? Well to start off I'd say the budget, they didn't have the budget. Some partys looked worse than the worst Scyfy original as far as CGI is concerned and some of the practical effects were Jason & the Argonauts level.

What else? Decent writing, a consistent supporting cast and something, anything to make it stand out from the those before it (In a good way).

Without all this we have an often ugly, poorly acted, unoriginal, tacky movie that for it's 3hr runtime is exhausting.

If you binge watch multiple adaptations expect this to be a low point.

Rants

I mean seriously that scene with the large creature that won't be elaborated on as this is a no spoiler review! The CGI there was, I mean truly next level and by next level I mean last level, I mean oldest level, I mean give a computer to a cave of neanderthal men and I'm confident they'd do better! Yikes, that was just embarassing.

The Good

Two leads are great as was Yared

The Bad

Brown is just obnoxious and unlikable in everything he's in.

Hugely ugly in places Some very weak writing Some even weaker acting with some of the supporting cast.

What a terrible waste of time! Boring story and tragically unbelievable special effects makes this TV movie just another TV movie for those, who are too lazy to go to the cinema.

Having watched it against my will i still feel like throwing away my time.

Ignore. 1/10

This is the best movie!! I give it 10/10. Even though most of the story wasn't from the book, it's the best movie I've seen in years. The whole cast did perfect on acting. The music was so moving. I plan to buy anything I can on this movie. (Posters, etc). Anyone who hasn't seen this, buy it or rent it now! Jeremy London did excellent as the unexperienced nephew on the expedition. So did Treat Williams and the Professor. Go rent this once-in-a-lifetime movie NOW!!

For some reason I thought I was renting (from the machine at Safeway) the LATEST version of this film with Brendon Frazier as they usually have new releases there. How stupid of me. It turned out to be the 1999 version with Treat Williams. Only a few minutes into it I realized it was a made for TV by Lifetime. The producers had a lot of nerve coming up with this comic book adaptation of such a great novel. Poor Jules Verne. It was not too bad until they reach New Zealand and enter the cave leading to what they call the center of the earth that turned out to be a movie set with blue painted trees and studio made mache rocks. They all act as if they're at Disneyland on an underground ride. And when they meet the creatures who speak English it's beyond belief. Obviously there was a ballet school somewhere behind those rocks, even with a choreographer, as a full corps of ballet girls were dancing with ballet steps mixed with disco dancing. Totally ridiculous. The husband of the Carnegie heiress who they were looking for and found, speaks with an Australian accent and doesn't give a damn after finding out that Treat Williams had screwed his wife someplace behind a rock, but more unbelievable is that Treat would fall in love with her anyway as she's not at all attractive besides being one of the worst actors I've ever seen. Where did they find her? In a High School play? Then, of course, there's an evil Queen but I fast forwarded over most of that scene so don't know what she was up to. Should I care? The only thing worth looking at is Treat Williams who seems to have kept his youth remarkably. Now I can't wait to see the Brendon Frazier one that's still playing in the theaters in 3D. I should have known better.