Aug 16 2008
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Back to back weeks of hit Brendan Frasier films at the cinema can only make on wonder if we have finally come to the cinematic apocalypse. I’m here to tell you, maybe.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is certainly far better than the abysmal The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Unfortunately, it is not Frasier’s rather flat acting that is the improvement. It’s the producers big gimmick for the film that works. That’s right, 3D. The film is visually stunning, as much as any critic would fear praising a film for the clear gimmicky quality of it, but the films script and acting are lagging so far behind the curve that it is the visual component of this film that makes it worth a viewing.
The story revolves loosely around the Jules Verne novel of the same name. The novel acts more as a catalyst for the story than as the source material. Frasier plays a failing science professor whose about to lose his grants when his sister-in-law drops his estranged nephew off to visit for a couple of weeks. His brother, the boys dad, went missing years ago, and has long been presumed dead. Among the things he left behind was a copy of Verne’s novel. The brother, also a scientist, believed that Verne’s novel may have more truth in it than most people believe. He went searching for the magma tunnel that led to the center of the earth and was never heard from again. When the conditions appear to be the same as the day the his brother disappeared, Frasier and nephew decide to take a flight to Iceland and see what is going on at one of their research facilities, the rest is clear from any trailer you might have seen. Extinct species, lots of 3D shots that had no real purpose except to make you go “ohhh…ahhh,” which you will.
If there was anything else going on in the film, it was totally lost on me. With the growing trend of blockbusters being shot to be screened at the IMAX and a whole new generation of 3D films being released one can only hope that some more substantial cinema will be produced with this technology than Speed Racer, Fly Me to the Moon, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Films should utilize this technology, not be produced so that the technology has a use. There isn’t a whole lot in Journey to the Center of the Earth to be thankful for, and the DVD release is sure to be a lackluster affair. Yet, if you’re a cinema-goer who lives for visually striking work, you will “ohh” and “ahh” yourself to death at Journey to the Center of the Earth.
