Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) Review

There have been several film versions of Journey to the Center of the Earth, and they more-or-less follow the Jules Verne book. The 1959 version with James Mason is my favorite. This new version takes a different spin on it that makes it a lot of fun.

I think what made this version so fun is that it actually uses the Jules Verne book to discover that the journey in the book is actually a documentary and not a piece of fiction. The characters start out skeptical of such a thing but all end up coming to see it. This kind of action movie is also something that Brendan Fraser is very well suited to, so I enjoyed watching him, too.

On the other hand, the amount of gimmicks included for the 3D version of the movie is huge, resulting in a lot of “ugh” moments. Worse, many of the CG effects are down-right bad, looking like the included shots aren’t actually the final renderings. Similarly the placement of some of the CG effects isn’t quite lined up with what the actor is doing.

Enjoyable if you’re into this sort of movie, but certainly not a must-see.