Review by Brian Tallerico

"I wish I'd read the book."

It's rare, but, every once in a while, a character in the movie you're reviewing writes the review for you. Those six simple words are spoken by Sean (Josh Hutcherson), a PSP-loving, adult-hating 13-year-old who goes on a break-neck adventure with his explorer uncle Trevor (Brendan Fraser) and a hot mountain guide named Hannah (Anita Briem) to the center of the Earth. (And what did YOU do for your summer vacation?) An update of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3-D isn't a bad idea on paper, but the result is shockingly lifeless on the big screen, coming off flat even with 3-D glasses. Employing more "throw at the camera" tricks than Jaws 3-D and the third Friday the 13th movie combined, Journey to the Center of the Earth should be a young-adult thrill ride, but even the target audience (which, I'll admit, isn't me) is likely to be bored. It's as if the filmmakers added the 3-D element because they knew the movie would be too boring to be released without it. The images that pop off the screen don't enhance the final product. They're just there to keep you awake.

More of a sequel to the Verne book than a faithful retelling (they must have presumed that the target audience wouldn't see a movie based directly on a classic they were forced to read in middle school), Journey to the Center of the Earth opens with a shot of a man running across cracking ground, chased by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That man turns out to be Max, the brother of Brendan Fraser's Trevor and an explorer who disappeared a decade earlier. Max's son, Sean, is coming to stay with Uncle Trev at the exact same time seismic readings from around the globe fall strangely into sync, replicating the conditions that inspired Max to make his original trip down under. Max was a Vernian, a man who believes that Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth wasn't fiction and that, using the book, he could find a way into the Earth's core. With the readings matching up to Max's first voyage, Trevor grabs Sean and heads to Iceland to follow in his brother's footsteps. Before you're done rolling your eyes at the inclusion of a yo-yo in a 3-D movie, Sean, Trevor, and their sexy guide Hannah are miles below the Earth's surface, marveling at birds that glow in the dark, dodging giant piranha, and, of course, fleeing T-Rexes.

Except for a roller-coaster ride through a mine shaft - think Temple of Doom in 3-D - Journey to the Center of the Earth is shockingly lifeless. Fraser has never been a particularly interesting actor, and he feels even more overwhelmed by what's around him than usual. That's even more depressing when one considers how obvious it is that there's NOTHING actually around him. It's hard to complain about a lack of believability in a movie about three people travelling through the bowels of the planet, but the lack of effort put into creating even a remotely interesting world within our world is truly what sinks Journey. The mine shaft sequence works because it feels like something that could, physically, be happening. The rest of the movie looks like people in front of a green screen on a poorly designed set. Monster House was more believable.

The two actors not named Brendan fare better than our dull hero. Josh Hutcherson proved in Bridge to Terabithia that he could add some depth to a part that a lot of his peers would have screwed up. He's not as good here, but only because he's given significantly less to do. It’s hard to add depth when your primary character motivation is “Run”. Anita Briem shows the most screen charisma of the trio and could be an interesting actress to watch in the right project. Both actors deserved better and, come to think of it, so did Jules Verne, English teachers, book readers, and summer movie audiences.

Rating: ONE BONE

Release Date: July 11th, 2008

Rating: PG

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem, and Seth Meyers

Director: Eric Brevig

Writers: Michael Weiss and Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin