JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (2008)

Action/Adventure/Family/Science Fiction/Fantasy, PG, 92 mins.

***1/2 out of *****.

Erik Brevig, an experienced visual effects artist, makes his feature film directing debut with this update of Jules Verne’s classic sci-fi novel about a group of people making an effort to reach the center of the earth to further mankind’s scientific knowledge. Screenwriter Michael Weiss boasts an impressive list of crappy movies, including direct-to-video features like Octopus , Crocodile, U.S. Seals II (a sequel to a rip-off…), Octopus 2: River of Fear and, get this, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. Good thing I researched all this after I saw the movie, otherwise I probably would have skipped it.

This is, however, the best version of the novel that has ever been made for the screen. I’ve seen most of the other film adaptations of the story, so I had low expectations but high hopes, since so much had been left undone as far as putting Verne’s actual story on the screen.

While the previous films took wild liberties with the source, this one takes a completely different approach, it literally presents itself as though Jules Verne wrote the novel based on a true expedition. Professor Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser), carries a copy of the novel through the movie with him as sort of a map to guide him, his nephew Sean, and their hottie Icelandic mountain guide Hannah through the dangers that they encounter on their journey through the earth’s crust.

In an effort to prove the potential truth of his long-missing brother’s research and theories (and to get along with his smart-ass nephew), Anderson sets off on this quest to penetrate the earth’s crust through a volcano in Iceland. What follows is a remarkably faithful presentation of Verne’s story, which doesn’t really matter because most people will be more interested in the 3D anyway.

And the 3D is impressive, by the way. We have come a long way since those red and blue sunglasses that just made everything look red and blue, the 3D here is so realistic that the obligatory jump-through-the-screen moments may cause even the most judicious of us to raise our eyebrows. Sadly, that realism is the new novelty, so the movie can’t help halting in its tracks every ten minutes or so for a nice 3D wow-moment. I hate that.

It should be noted that this is a family film, so don’t expect high adventure or danger the likes of which you should expect to find on a journey anywhere where no one has ever been before. As a guide, I have developed a theory that, in a movie like this, the character who doesn’t know anything (Sean, the nephew), is about the age of the target audience, because he is the one that needs to have everything explained to him, for the audience’s benefit. Sean is 13.

Professor Anderson wishing that Jules Verne had written a shorter book.

There is, however, an immediate and crippling discrepancy with the story. Before anything happens resembling any journey anywhere, we get a Toyota Prius commercial, a PSP commercial, plugs for Mountain Dew, Tivo, Family Guy, and Iceland Airlines, and the strange revelations that a PSP can “Google at 30,000 feet” and a punk teenager can receive calls on his cell phone while trapped miles below the earth’s surface. That’s news to me!

The problem is that the story of a journey, as Anderson describes it, through the earth’s crust and into the mantle, requires a fundamental lack of modern scientific knowledge. So it follows that in a society that has commercial airlines, hybrid vehicles, portable video game devices that can search the internet at cruising altitude, cell phones that work anywhere on or in the planet, and modern computers, should also understand that a journey to the “center of the earth” is, as they say, an exercise in futility.

See? Your standard eighth grade Earth Science book knows what it looks like in there!

Nonetheless, this could be a great way to spend some time with the kids this weekend and, although there is one emotional moment and one romantic moment in the movie and both fall completely flat, it’s not the worst date movie I’ve ever seen. There are some clever and amusing scenes (”We’re STILL falling!”) but also plenty of cheeseball dialogue and half-assed performances (Fraser’s quivering lip is just too much…), but despite the roller coaster ride lifted right out of Indiana Jones and the bizarre idea of the magnetic rocks, the movie surpasses expectations. At least if you know what came before it…

Professor Anderson and his nephew Sean, in a screen moment where they encounter a creature that betrays a stupendous lack of imagination on the part of the digital effects team.

In theaters now, Brendan Fraser stars in the latest adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1864 novel “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which has opened to luke-warm response but, as you’ll see in a minute, is mostly because so few people remember the previous film efforts of the story. Get ready for a Brendan Fraser movie to look Oscar worthy!

Jules Verne in 1892 (about age 64), blissfully unaware of the abuses that his third novel would suffer when made accessible to people who don’t like to read.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1959)

Family Adventure, G, 132 mins.

1959 marked the first ever attempt to put Verne’s classic story on any screen, big or small, and it becomes immediately clear that no one had any idea what they were doing. Now, I should start by mentioning that this was an attempt to make a very intricate and ambitious science fiction story into a movie at a time when cinema magic was, to say the least, developing. It is no surprise that the special effects are limited but, ladies and gentlemen, I kid you not, they added a duck. I can’t imagine what Jules Verne must have done in his grave back in 1959. Just rolling over seems insufficient.

An astonished Peter Ronson is shocked to see what has become of his career.

I understand that a majority of the people who will go to see the latest adaptation have never read Verne’s novel (which is part of the reason I’m writing this post), but I don’t think it requires a deep understanding of the source material to really grasp why a pet duck being placed into the movie is such a deeply and genuinely bizarre and ridiculous idea. It has been nearly forgotten completely by now, but this has to go down as one of the most outlandish things that has ever made it into the final cut of any major film.

Unfortunately, very little attention is paid to the original story in this movie, it’s more an exploration of the emerging science fiction genre and a test of creativity in creating imaginary parts of a part of the earth that no one has ever seen.

Pat Boone and his fellow travellers, at the mercy of the set decorators.

The story concerns an Edinburgh professor who leads a small group of explorers on a journey in an effort to reach the center of the earth through a volcano in Iceland. They encounter all manner of primitive special effects and archaic sound stages, and occasionally break into song.

Oh yeah, did I mention it’s a musical? Another not so great idea…

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1999) (TV)

Action/Adventure, 4-part miniseries, 188 mins.

This 1999 made-for-TV adaptation of Verne’s novel, like it’s predecessor from 40 years earlier, has little to do with the original story, and this time they don’t even have the excuse of developing cinematic ability. The story is much more interesting, but the movie is packed with cheesy sets, goofy acting, ridiculous caricatures and atrocious special effects.

In the show’s defense, a good part of the first half (that’s the first 90 minutes or so, by the way) actually takes great care to follow the novel, but then skews off in a completely different direction, as though the screenwriter was sacked in mid-sentence and replaced with a xerox machine.

To make matters worse, some of the “bizarre and fascinating creatures” that they encounter on their journey are an entire society of English speaking people. That and the exterior scenes filmed in broad daylight are a little distracting to the whole subterranean theme…

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME (1967)

Science Fiction, Unrated, 87 mins.

Not to be confused with anything that has anything to do with Jules Verne, in 1967 this movie was made, about a similarly ambitious effort to reach the center of time. A good part of the reason that I watched the movie was because I was curious about whatever or wherever or whenever the center of time actually is.

It turns out that it is defined in the movie as “the balance between past and future,” although I had always been under the impression that that particular location was the tenuous and fleeting place generally known as “now.” Maybe a more interesting story would deal with a journey away from the center of time…

But here’s what I love about the movie. It’s about a group of scientists making this enormously complex attempt to reach the “center of time,” using enormously simple equipment. Soon, however, we are given the bizarre explanation that this is a $14 million project to create a satellite that can show pictures taken 24 hours ago. Is that how much $14 million buys? 24 hours? That’s really too bad. Maybe that’s why most people can only afford surveillance cameras. The cheap, boring, non-time-travelling ones. No one makes movies about those!

Then again, for all the cardboard simplicity of the lab, they did have a hydraulic lift built in to raise and lower people about 18 inches from the upper platform to the lower platform. A more frugal team would have installed the two stairs, but maybe these guys weren’t quite sure what to do with all that money.

The cast watching infomercials in an effort to figure out what to do with the other $13,968,622.46 they had left after the big screen tv and the hydraulic lift. How about a rocketship?

The latest Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) is far superior to any of these, I should say. For all it’s shortcomings, it’s a breath of fresh air compared to what came before it. Sadly, it may require the effort of watching these older movies, or at least reading this post about them, in order to really appreciate it. Enjoy!