Journey to the Center of the Earth

But I have to say, it takes a set of balls the size of ostrich eggs to make a movie and put a title on it that belongs to an entirely different story. Jules Verne is spinning in his grave on this one, believe me--this isn't even vaguely in line with the book. None of the characters even have the same name, fer crying' out loud! There's tribes of lizard men and humans living down there, AND THE HUMANS SPEAK English!!

I did find the movie entertaining however, my only real issue with it is blatantly stealing the name of one of the greatest science fiction fantasies ever written in history and dropping it on another story in the blatant interest of tricking people to come in and think that they're about to witness the real thing. For God's sake, they even credit Jules Verne!!! For what, writing the title? On the up side, the women are all beautiful, but on the other hand, the men don't look like any of them, at least the subterranean dwellers, have bathed in years. What IS that stuff on them, anyway, if not dirt.

I hear that they're remaking Plan 9 From Outer Space next year, and they're going to call it Gone With the Wind.

I should start off and say that I have no problem with women in the movies, I like to think that no one would have taken the above statement that way. But in the two adaptations of Journey to the Center of the Earth, women have been added to the expedition, this time in spectacular fashion, and to the overall detriment to Verne's story, which was about exploration and discovery and not about romance. But whatever, being what it is, the 1999 version at least had a moderately interesting story, although one which had little to do with the source material.

Sadly, this made for TV movie is packed with cheesy sets, goofy acting, ridiculous caricatures and atrocious special effects. Obviously, they had to make the film with what budget they had available to them, and I imagine they probably did a great job for what they had to work with, but this three hour epic takes great care to follow some parts of Verne's novel, and in other parts, the entire second half, for example, it flies off on a tangent and goes in a totally different direction. I'm all about creativity, but ever since I read JJules Verne's novel I have been dying to see a film adaptation that was at least moderately interested in adapting the actual story to the screen. So far no such luck.

Among the many things that I found disappointing about this movie, and the one that I had most hoped would have been improved upon from the 1959 version, is the subterranean sea and the surrounding environment. There are some fairly impressive special effects shots that show that there is a ceiling of granite over this massive ocean, but then the rest of the movie that takes place in this underground cavern was simply filmed outside, sunshine and all. You literally have to keep reminding yourself that this all takes place underground because it is so obviously not. And the thing that kills me is that if they had altered the color of the light that was lighting everything they could have solved that. It's right there in the book, it was described as a sort of luminescent, soft, electrical glow, I'm picturing something with a greenish tint. All that natural coloring just kills the whole effect.

Then you have the creatures that they ran into in the novel, literally they caught glimpse of some strange looking humanoid creatures and then took off running, but this movie turns them into an entire society of English speaking people, a full on culture of tribal inhabitants, the interaction with whom provides the majority of the conflict in the movie, and thus is where the real point of the novel is lost completely. The story is no longer about journeying to the center of the earth, but is instead about these outsiders arriving out of nowhere into this society, causing some dangerous conflict with the humanoid underground dwellers that live in the woods near them, and the ultimately trying to make everything right.

Oh yeah, and of course everyone in the movie has some love interest, except for the Scottish, ah, tour guide with the mysterious tattoo on his nose. But he's really only there for comic relief and brute force when needed, so that's to be expected. Needless to say, the young subterranean lover that Jonas, the strapping young explorer, meets in this underground kingdom is not the vaguely humanoid kind of creatures that were described in the book, but a stunning redhead who speaks perfect English. Now, it doesn't bother me that they speak English, because there is a sufficient reason given for that. But to have English speaking people on the journey to the center of the earth is a little distracting. As soon as Ralna say something in English you know the rest of the book is out the window. I just really don't think that anything like this is even remotely what Jules Verne had in mind

This one is an unimpressive adaptation of one of the most important novels of Jules Verne known as the writer who creates science fiction as a literary genre (in fact, Journey to the Center of the Earth is credited by Arthur C. Clarke as the best novel of Verne). This version have some good special effects but lacks impact and originality. If you want to see a better view of the same novel, see the version with James Mason instead. I give this a 4 (four).

For some reason I thought I was renting (from the machine at Safeway) the LATEST version of this film with Brendon Frazier as they usually have new releases there. How stupid of me. It turned out to be the 1999 version with Treat Williams. Only a few minutes into it I realized it was a made for TV by Lifetime. The producers had a lot of nerve coming up with this comic book adaptation of such a great novel. Poor Jules Verne. It was not too bad until they reach New Zealand and enter the cave leading to what they call the center of the earth that turned out to be a movie set with blue painted trees and studio made mache rocks. They all act as if they're at Disneyland on an underground ride. And when they meet the creatures who speak English it's beyond belief. Obviously there was a ballet school somewhere behind those rocks, even with a choreographer, as a full corps of ballet girls were dancing with ballet steps mixed with disco dancing. Totally ridiculous. The husband of the Carnegie heiress who they were looking for and found, speaks with an Australian accent and doesn't give a damn after finding out that Treat Williams had screwed his wife someplace behind a rock, but more unbelievable is that Treat would fall in love with her anyway as she's not at all attractive besides being one of the worst actors I've ever seen. Where did they find her? In a High School play? Then, of course, there's an evil Queen but I fast forwarded over most of that scene so don't know what she was up to. Should I care? The only thing worth looking at is Treat Williams who seems to have kept his youth remarkably. Now I can't wait to see the Brendon Frazier one that's still playing in the theaters in 3D. I should have known better.

Now let's get one thing straight before I fire my gun: I'm a BIG fan of Treat Williams (and I am not ashamed to admit I LOVED "Deep Rising"). I even like both the London-brothers, and fondly remember young Petra Jared from the TV-show "Sky Trackers". BUT what's with all these positive user comments? It doesn't make sense compared to (at the time of writing) a user rating of 4,6!

And here's why, I am sad to say, it deserves just that low rating: it's god awful BORING! It goes on for three hours and barely nothing happens!!! Sure, a few cool monsters here and there, some "cavemen", and the presence of Treat Williams, but still: this Hallmark production doesn't come close to the excitement of reading the original Jules Verne classic.

1/3 of the time is spent in a monotonous climb through caves (which all look like they are walking through the same studio over and over again). Then they reach to the "center", where another 1/3 is spent on another sound stage made to look like a village surrounded by a deep forest (for the occasion spray painted in blue). Two or three times they are attacked by some badly computer animated dinosaurs. Definitely not what one would expect from any studio SIX years after the lifelike "Jurassic Park".

And not forgetting the worst thing of it all: the soundtrack! What soundtrack? It reeks and stinks so bad I could not believe it made it to a production of this magnitude. This is one time I actually believe it was written by a computer! It doesn't fit any of the action, come to think of it: it is so simple, so without charm or any redeeming qualities what so ever it could fit ANYTHING. As a big fan of movie music I can't in my wildest dreams even begin to imagine what creature actually got paid for composing it! The end credits even tell us the crap is available on CD!!! Oh... my... God!

A nice bonus however is the appearance of some real maori tribesmen, and the fact that it is shot on location in New Zealand and Australia. All that said, this re-telling of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" isn't that bad. It just has cheesy effects, a laughable "soundtrack", and is presented in an excruciatingly boring way! And this comes from someone who has never had a problem sitting through looong movies, or mini-series for that matter.