Hap Erstein

"Journey to the Center of the Earth": It's All About the 3-D, Unfortunately

I have long been liberated from my glasses, first by contact lenses and more recently by laser surgery, so the last thing I want when I go to the movies is to be handed a pair of glasses to wear for the sake of 3-D effects.

A) Although the multi-planar effect has definitely been improved over the years, little progress has been made in the comfort, or lack of it, when wearing the glasses. But more importantly, B) once a director decides to shoot a movie in 3-D, he feels obligated to emphasize the gimmick, which invariably fights with the story for dominance.

Take the new Journey to the Center of the Earth, being projected in many theaters with a 3-D system known as Real D. It is is studded with hokey effects, such as a yo-yo unfurling straight at the audience, carnivorous flying fish in our faces and, my personal favorite, Brendan Fraser expectorating after brushing his teeth, captured from the viewpoint of the sink drain. Who said today's movies are not better than ever?

As a result, Jules Verne's terrific science fiction novel has been reduced to kid's stuff, aimed squarely at the pre-teen market.

I know I'm dating myself, but I can remember seeing the 1959 version, when the unlikely crew of James Mason, Pat Boone and Arlene Dahl went subterranean. While that movie took plenty of liberties with the source material, it seems positively faithful compared to this new release, which posits that the journey actually took place and Verne was merely the conduit for the expedition's log.

So an underwriting-strapped professor of geology named Trevor (Fraser), who takes his visiting nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) down below to prove that the boy's father successfully proved his theory of "volcanic tubes," and did not die in vain far beneath the earth's surface.

Yeah, whatever.

Rookie director Eric Brevig and his trio of writers take their time getting the movie in gear, but once Fraser, Hutcherson and Anita Briem, a comely lass who plays an Icelandic scientist's daughter fall through the rabbit hole, they then waste little time riding roller coaster-like mine carts, dodging those killer fish, running from a frisky Tyrannosaurus Rex and trying to catch the next geyser to be rocketed back to the earth's surface.

While realism has no place in a movie like this, production designer David Sandefur never persuades us that we are looking at anything other than movie sets. And unfortunately, the movie it most brings to mind is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which could not be what was intended.

Fraser has previously shown that he is an accomplished actor (Gods and Monsters), but he is completely defeated here by the tin-eared dialogue he is given. Nor was it a good idea to insert a romance between Fraser and Briem, who looks young enough to be his daughter. Creepy.

Only those hooked on the novelty of 3-D should bother taking this Journey. If you do not need to see water spit at you, there are better places to spend your summer movie money.