On My Shelf: Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)
I've had this copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth on my shelf for some time now, and I've avoiding been watching it because I thought it would be unwatchably horrible.
Why do I have a movie on my shelf that I don't want to watch? Well, because for Christmas I was gifted a copy of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island -- and if I'm going to watch that, I guess I have to have watched the first movie, right?
So I got this copy of Journey from the library and it's been sitting on my shelf for a while now, while I watched other movies to avoid watching it. But then I ran out of other movies, and had to watch this. Grudgingly.
The Plot: Brendan Fraser's brother went missing ten years ago. Brendan Fraser and his nephew discover some clues that lead them to believe that just maybe the brother discovered a secret world-within-a-world with the help of the book Journey to the Center of the Earth. The nephew just happens to have his passport with him, and they just happen to have enough money to fly to Iceland where this supposed hole is, so they go. There, they meet love-interest Icelandic woman, who helps them find a hole. (That sounds kind of bad now that I've written it, but it is what it is.) They go down the hole and have implausible adventures. The end.
*implausible adventure having*Long story short... IT REALLY WASN'T AS BAD AS I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE. As an early film cashing in on the "3-D" revival craze, I figured that was all it had going for it, and that it would be as obnoxious as any other modern kids' movie -- full of gut-clenchingly bad jokes, lame gross-out humor, and the shallowest, one-dimensional characterization imaginable.
But it wasn't that.
Of course, it wasn't that great of a movie, either. The best action sequences were cribbed from Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park -- the special effects were increasingly-crappy-looking CGI -- and the plot wasn't exactly complex. "We want to go here. Now we need to go here. Now we need to go here," ... is the plot in a nutshell.
I can't think of any other movie where the heroes have
a high-speed minecart chase. (Oh, except for one of the
greatest adventure movies of all time. Yeah, except for that.)But the characters weren't obnoxious -- not even the "obnoxious teenager" (who did have the cliche "Welcome to the 21st century" line, which is invariably said by insufferable people, but in this case that sort of thing was kept to a minimum.) I expected the female lead to be an awful "I AM A STRONG, INDEPENDENT WOMAN AND THEREFORE HAVE TO BE A JERK ALL THE TIME"-type... but she really wasn't. She was strong and independent, but didn't have to comment on it (commenting on it weakens a character, ironically) or accuse both guys of being sexist pigs.
As for Brendan Fraser as "benign mild-mannered professor" -- he was pretty benign and mild-mannered, so it worked. Not the most exciting performance I've seen him give, but not my least favorite, either.
All and all, then, it was a pretty simple, harmless movie. Not bad, not great... just harmless. If you're in the mood for a "deep" movie... ironically, Journey to the Center of the Earth this isn't one of those... but watching it didn't hurt me, and -- if I needed a movie to hold a child's attention for an hour a half, or if I needed some background noise that features Brendan Fraser -- I would probably select this movie again.
RECOMMENDED*Harmless*
(For the record, the sequel, Journey 2, does not feature Brendan Fraser. It features the same kid, and The Rock as his new step-Dad [which is already the most implausible thing in the film] More on that next week).
Why do I have a movie on my shelf that I don't want to watch? Well, because for Christmas I was gifted a copy of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island -- and if I'm going to watch that, I guess I have to have watched the first movie, right?
So I got this copy of Journey from the library and it's been sitting on my shelf for a while now, while I watched other movies to avoid watching it. But then I ran out of other movies, and had to watch this. Grudgingly.
The Plot: Brendan Fraser's brother went missing ten years ago. Brendan Fraser and his nephew discover some clues that lead them to believe that just maybe the brother discovered a secret world-within-a-world with the help of the book Journey to the Center of the Earth. The nephew just happens to have his passport with him, and they just happen to have enough money to fly to Iceland where this supposed hole is, so they go. There, they meet love-interest Icelandic woman, who helps them find a hole. (That sounds kind of bad now that I've written it, but it is what it is.) They go down the hole and have implausible adventures. The end.
*implausible adventure having*Long story short... IT REALLY WASN'T AS BAD AS I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE. As an early film cashing in on the "3-D" revival craze, I figured that was all it had going for it, and that it would be as obnoxious as any other modern kids' movie -- full of gut-clenchingly bad jokes, lame gross-out humor, and the shallowest, one-dimensional characterization imaginable.But it wasn't that.
Of course, it wasn't that great of a movie, either. The best action sequences were cribbed from Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park -- the special effects were increasingly-crappy-looking CGI -- and the plot wasn't exactly complex. "We want to go here. Now we need to go here. Now we need to go here," ... is the plot in a nutshell.
I can't think of any other movie where the heroes havea high-speed minecart chase. (Oh, except for one of the
greatest adventure movies of all time. Yeah, except for that.)But the characters weren't obnoxious -- not even the "obnoxious teenager" (who did have the cliche "Welcome to the 21st century" line, which is invariably said by insufferable people, but in this case that sort of thing was kept to a minimum.) I expected the female lead to be an awful "I AM A STRONG, INDEPENDENT WOMAN AND THEREFORE HAVE TO BE A JERK ALL THE TIME"-type... but she really wasn't. She was strong and independent, but didn't have to comment on it (commenting on it weakens a character, ironically) or accuse both guys of being sexist pigs.
As for Brendan Fraser as "benign mild-mannered professor" -- he was pretty benign and mild-mannered, so it worked. Not the most exciting performance I've seen him give, but not my least favorite, either.
All and all, then, it was a pretty simple, harmless movie. Not bad, not great... just harmless. If you're in the mood for a "deep" movie... ironically, Journey to the Center of the Earth this isn't one of those... but watching it didn't hurt me, and -- if I needed a movie to hold a child's attention for an hour a half, or if I needed some background noise that features Brendan Fraser -- I would probably select this movie again.
RECOMMENDED*Harmless*
(For the record, the sequel, Journey 2, does not feature Brendan Fraser. It features the same kid, and The Rock as his new step-Dad [which is already the most implausible thing in the film] More on that next week).
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