Director: Eric Brevig
Writers: Michael Weiss, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin, novel by Jules Verne
Cinematographer: Chuck Shuman
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem, Seth Meyers
Studio/Run Time: New Line Cinema, 92 mins.
And lo, the voice of Movie Future did say, “Let there be Real D!” And it was good. Maybe.
With major studios spending millions on the latest 3-D process—called Real D—and theaters worldwide spending millions more on retrofitting their projectors, the average movie-going experience is about to change, and maybe not always for the better. Real D’s latest fashion statement, Journey to the Center of the Earth, is passable enjoyment for the same reason the New York Times called the concert film U2 3D a work of art. Take away the 3-D and you have a poor interpretation of Jules Verne’s classic story and an okay rock ‘n’ roll movie.
In Journey, when new volcanic evidence convinces research scientist Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) to take a sudden trip to Iceland with his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson), they become entrapped, along with a lovely mountain guide (Anita Briem), in a strange world miles below the surface of the earth. The adventurers soon believe Verne’s book was based on actual facts, but now have to find a way out because of an impending disaster while also escaping giant piranha, people-eating plants and the stereotypical tyrannosaurus rex. Fraser does his Mummy best to save us from the true disaster—the script. The Real D effects are admirable, but offer little respite when employing cheap 3-D tricks like yo-yos and roller coasters.
While films like U2 3D may be a representation of the best use of this new digital medium, let’s hope films like this onebecome the exception and not a foreboding rule of what our journey to the center of technology might hold.