Viaje al Centro de la Tierra

It's been ten years since professor Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser)'s brother Max been missing. The university is about to clear Max's lab for storage. His nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) is spending 10 days with him while Sean's mother is preparing to move to Canada. Trevor is given a box of Max's stuff. There he finds the Jules Verne book 'A Journey to the Center of the Earth' which Trevor and Sean follow in the track of Max. Once in Iceland, they find Hannah (Anita Briem) who is the daughter of a deceased scientist. Max and the dead scientist both believe in the reality of Jules Verne's book. So Hannah, Sean, and Trevor follow the trail to an unbelievable underground world.

Forget about the science, this is a simple fantasy amusement park ride. Brendan Fraser is the same guy as 'The Mummy'. He's still that charming nice guy. Josh Hutcherson is pretty good, but Anita Briem is kind of cold. Chemistry isn't that necessary. It's a great fun ride nonetheless.

Originally released in 3D (I've not seen it in that format, sadly), Eric Brevig's take on the Jules Verne novel updates it to modern day and sends Brendan Fraser, his nephew (Josh Hutcherson) and Icelandic babe Anita Briem down to, well, the centre of the Earth. Where of course peril and wonderment await in equal measure. As adventure films go it's entertaining stuff as the intrepid trio run, dive, jump and fight their way through the hazards of a hot land that's getting hotter by the hour. The kicker in the story here is that they are saying Verne's novel is true, giving birth to a collective of people known as Vernians who believe this to be so. Therefore for plot drive the book is used as a sort of tourist guide to aid them in their attempts to escape from the Centre of the Earth. Cool or what? The production design is excellent, marking the film out as being very visually appealing, while a number of the set pieces are genuinely entertaining and suspenseful. It moves along at a good clip, too, and the three actors carrying the film engage firmly on the good side of good, especially Fraser, who can do the heroic kooky act with ease.

It's far from being a truly great film, but the makers have at least tried to put their own stamp on the story, making it a sort of modern day sequel to the wonderful novel. But even with that in mind, narratively speaking it's very predictable for the most part, but speeding along as a family friendly adventure the film never once outstays its welcome. Of worth as well is that Briem's character, Hannah Ásgeirsson, is not a token female put in simply to look hot and give Fraser the push to prove his masculinity. Ásgeirsson is tough, intelligent and resourceful, working on a par with Fraser's Professor Anderson, this also sets up a running joke involving the two of them as to who saves each others lives the most times! In 2D some of the impact of certain scenes is invariably lost, though we can easily imagine what the 3D sight of Fraser unleashing a mouthful of toothpaste and water on us is like! But as it is it's a film that is unlikely to garner much love from sci-fi buffs and haters of popcorn pleasures, but kids will love it, as will the adults who don't mind letting their guard down once in a while for a bit of good clean family friendly fun. 6/10

I know that title sounds a bit rough, but i did not hate this movie. quite the opposite in fact. i'm actually surprised in how much i enjoyed this movie. i really only rented it for the 3-D, but you know what? i had a lot of fun. and honestly, that was the best movie i've seen Brendan Frasier in since "the mummy". Brendan really is a lot better in action films then he is in comedy or romances. he should stick to action.

The film was a good time all in all. The characters weren't annoying as hell, it was a cute PG plot, and it taught some fun lessons.

I've been looking on the board and seeing that there's a lot of "that couldn't happen!" and "this movie is childish!" OK. look. it's a PG movie called "Journey to the Center of the Earth". It isn't a political documentary. Suspend your disbelief, sit back and enjoy it. Unless of course you want to hand me your 30 page dissertation on why Doc Brown's time machine is an impossibility. If you're not one of those sad lonely people, you'll find this movie quite a lot of fun. Not an epic masterpiece, but a lot of fun.

If i had to voice one problem is that they need to stop giving anaglyph glasses. it kind of hurts your eyes after a while. They have good 3-d glasses, don't they? they give them out in Florida for Terminator and the Muppet show, so why don't they include those? that would definitely make the movie better in my opinion.

Other than my hurting eyes though, this movie was a nice break from monotonous depressing dark plot based films.

With a fun premise, tongue in cheek humor, and decent 3-D effects, Journey to the center of the earth gets 7 glowing birds, out of 10

Starting with the pros of this film, it looks fantastic. The scenery is imaginative, the cinematography is inventive the costumes are well-designed and the 3D is absolutely mind-blowing. The score is excellent, and the direction isn't too bad either. The acting is pretty decent, nothing great, but nothing awful. I liked Brendan Fraser in the first two Mummy movies and he is good enough in the lead, while Josh Hutcherson who was so good in Bridge to Terabithia is even better. Also the pacing is pretty brisk.

Don't expect a brilliant script or a big, complex plot though. The script can get a little lame and clichéd, while the plot is rather predictable with one too many silly and dumb moments. The ending felt a little rushed too, and the characters are lacking in depth.

Overall, not a masterpiece, but fun enough in perhaps a mindless sort of way. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Plain and simple: this is a kids' movie. If you're an adult and you saw the previews with some genuinely-scary looking scenes and thought, "Wow, this looks cool" - be warned. Some of it is cool, but most of it isn't.

Most of it is Brendan Franser doing his "George Of the Jungle" routing of yelling and screaming, either trying to find this teen kid or in terror as he falling for being chased by something. In fact, the last half hour of this film will give you headache with all the yelling by all three major parties.

I didn't realize this film was out in 3-D. I saw it on a regular DVD and the special-effects, in 2-D obviously, looked so cheesy. Some of these scenes looked like they were right out of the Tarzan movies of the 1930s with the obvious screen in the background and the actors on a stage in front of it. So, see this 3-D, if possible, otherwise expect it took look pretty bad.

Teen girls in the audience will like Josh Hutcherson ("Sean"), a handsome young kid who looks ad sounds good, until he gets excited and his voice cracks. Ah, the joys of puberty. Meanwhile, teen boys will get an eyeful with Anita Briem ("Hannah"), a very attractive new face. Actually, Anita has a lot of credibility in this role, playing a character living in Iceland who, in real life, was born and raised in Iceland before moving to England at the age of 16.

As for the story, it's a re-make of the famous Jules Verne story about discovering a whole new world (without people) in the center of the earth, complete with amazing birds and frightening animals and fish. Despite the dumbness of the dialog, the first hour was watchable. As with many adventure stories, though, it gets totally carried in the final third of the film.

In all, the movie is fairly entertaining to the degree that adults wouldn't be bored if they took their kids. It's not really offensive except for one stupid play-on-words which is totally unnecessary. Other than that, this is a very clean film safe for kids of most age. There are parts, however, that are way too scary for the real young ones.