Journey to the Center of the Earth

Director: Eric Brevig
Actors: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem, Seth Meyers, Jean Michel Par??
Studio: Warner Bros.
Category: Movie

Buy New: $3.99



Rating: 143 reviews
Sales Rank: 59

Genre: Action
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 93 Minutes

ASIN: B001JIDE3M

Theatrical Release Date: July 11, 2008
Release Date: November 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

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Synopsis

During a scientific expedition in Iceland, visionary scientist Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser), his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) and their beautiful local guide, Hannah (Anita Briem), are unexpectedly trapped in a cave from which their only escape is to go deeper and deeper into the depths of the Earth. Traveling through never-before-seen worlds, the trio comes face-to-face with surreal and unimaginable creatures-- including man-eating plants, giant flying piranha, glow birds and terrifying dinosaurs from days past. The explorers soon realize that as volcanic activity increases around them, they must find a way back to the earth's surface before it is too late.

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Customer Reviews

   Read 138 more reviews...

Fun...but shallow    January 7, 2009
PaulB (Lewisville, Texas)
It's fun and entertaining as long as you watch it just for fun and forget the actual plot.

The 1959 James Mason version is fantastic. Rated G, nice humor, deep story development based on the Verne book. This new version in no-way compares to the 1959 version. If your kids have only seen this new version they are missing out.


2-D versus 3-D    January 7, 2009
Norah A. Hendershot
My suggestion when you view this 3-D DVD you read the back of the box first. We didn't and we viewed the movie in 2-D, with 3-D glasses on and vowed only to see 3-D in theatres as iat wasn't very good. That night I went to TvBoxset.com and brought up this movie and learned it has both 2-D and 3-D versions on it. Yes, we put the 3-D glasses back on and viewed the movie on the other side. Wow, what a concept! It really does work if you view the correct side, 3-D, with the 3-D glasses. :) It was a good movie and the 3-D was very good.
Norah


Disappointing    January 6, 2009
The Piano Girl (USA)
First off, the 3D effects did nothing for me except give me a headache. I took off the glasses after 2 minutes because I couldn't tolerate it. And apparently it wasn't just me because my friend felt the same way. As for the movie. Boring!!! Predictable. It lacked energy and there was no where near enough action for an "adventure" movie. There would be a short sequence of potential excitement, and then... nothing. The acting: Ho Hum!! Usually I can at least finish a movie, especially if I paid for it. But not this. My suggestion: invest in something else.


Hollywood: More movies like this please!    January 6, 2009
J. Gardner (Southfield, MI)
Yay!! This movie proves that excitement, adventure and danger do not automatically equal violence, sex jokes and crude behavior. I keep having to say NO to all of the Superhero movies because of the PG-13 rating. So it was great to be able to say "Yes" to my 7-year-old twin boys for once. This is a "manly" movie. The emotional issues men and boys face in life are handled succinctly, giving this movie more depth than the non-stop action would seem to allow. The 3D effects truly add to the excitement. The few gratuitous/gross ones were just plain old fun & funny. The theater was packed and people actually clapped at the end. I hope Hollywood pays attention and puts out more PG movies of this caliber.


Once was enough    January 2, 2009
Jeff Howe (Maine, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Granted this is an adventure/action film. And granted that it was kept fairly clean for family viewing. Still, I had some problems with the movie. Without going into detail, it sort of mimics the original Jules Verne story. However, it is interesting in that it references the original story as some sort of secret code of a quasi-secret society and implies that it wasn't at all fictional when Verne wrote it.

Here's where it goes wrong. The characters are shallow. The plot is really unoriginal. The special effects are so obviously specially generated effects that they aren't particularly special at all. Even the sentimentalism is very thin.

There were many improbable scenes that require such a stretch of suspension of disbelief to make it work, that it didn't. Another movie I think of, in a similar genre, had no issue with suspension of disbelief. No, in fact, Raiders of the Lost Ark made you believe it was all quite possible. Easily so. Journey to the Center of the Earth did not.

As a side note: we switched from the 3D to the 2D after about 15 minutes into it. It just wasn't that visually appealing as a 3D movie.

This was worth seeing once, and only if you rent the DVD, in my opinion.