From the July 11 Oregonian....
Getting critically worked up over "Journey to the Center of the Earth" would be a bit like getting critically worked up over a Six Flags rollercoaster. Both are expensively engineered rides. Both pretty much work as designed.
"Journey" was designed to showcase state-of-the-art digital 3-D technology. (If you're going to see it at all, see it in the nicest 3-D theater you can afford.) It sets up its ride with the barest fundamentals of family-friendly story and dialogue. A professor (Brendan Fraser, in the first of his two Indiana Jones knockoffs this summer), his nephew (Josh Hutcherson) and an Icelandic guide (Anita Briem) find out the hard way that Jules Verne's 1864 novel "A Journey to the Centre of the Earth" was actually a non-fiction guidebook.
What follows feels like watching someone play an exceedingly high-rez game of "Pitfall." Director (and veteran visual-effects supervisor) Eric Brevig sets up situation after computer-generated situation to show off how cool 3-D tech looks these days. There are tons of vistas and runaway mine-car rides and dinosaurs and killer plants and in-your-face shots where water is squirted or spit at the camera. It's inoffensive and shiny and competent and kids will dig it, and I can already barely remember a single thing that happened.
_____
C-plus; 92 minutes; rated PG for intense adventure action and some scary moments.
'Journey to the Center of the Earth' (The Oregonian, July 11, 2008)
RELATED STORIES:
Hollywood's 3-D kick hits a bump (L.A. Times, July 10, 2008)
The 3-D Dilemma (Portfolio Magazine)
Comments