Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

Waste of time

Absolutely the worst movie.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This film tries to adapt to the cinema the sci-fi novel "Journey to the Center of the Earth" by Jules Verne. Book and author are even abundantly referred in the film. However, it creates a new story around the book that is a far cry from what was written by Verne. To begin with, this film doesn't happen in the nineteenth century but rather during our time and the original novel was about a scientific expedition into a volcano, not an occasional incident that runs by chance. The script is pretty basic and far-fetched, runs over science in favor of dramatic effect and abuses the usual clichés of adventure movies, with poorly constructed and undeveloped characters escaping from certain death always at the last moment. There is a lot of silly stuff in this movie and it harms it's quality. The film has a nice cinematography and the fast pace that it takes, along with its short lenght, helps to make it more enjoyable because we forget mistakes and failures that we would be thinking about, focusing on what is happening.About the actors I can only say that the cast is regular, tries hard but doesn't have much quality material on which to show talent. Brendan Fraser is the sounding name here, but it doesn't surprise the audience. His character is similar to what he had in "The Mummy", reason why it doesn't require a major effort of the actor, whose career fell into the doldrums after his sudden success. Anita Briem is a perfect stranger to me but plays the hot girl contested by the good guys while Josh Hutcherson is the revolted teenager.In short, this movie is the typical adventure movie in which nothing is credible but makes the public have fun, with appropriate doses of humor and action, some silly romance and a forgettable story. Worth watching if you just want some quick entertainment.

The reviewers of "Journey" are probably all correct: the logic is spotty, the premise is silly, and the requirement of the audience to suspend disbelief is beyond a typically successful film. However, despite all of that, I liked it! I saw this on a flight from America to England. So in a way I was a captive audience.Brendan Fraser has always been a great actor, in my opinion. The supporting cast (and there wasn't much of them, as it was mostly CGI stuff, and not really populated with many humans, except for brief appearances) was also adequate, albeit they had little to do.Overall, then, this was science fiction with an emphasis on the "fiction." Little here was even remotely believable. Yet taken together, it made an interesting visual contemplation of "what if?this is a kids' movie. If you're an adult and you saw the previews with some genuinely- scary looking scenes and thought, "Wow, this looks cool" - be warned. Some of it is cool, but most of it isn't.

I really enjoy this movie. It's a lot better than the sequel. I like how in the original Journey To The Center Of The Earth, in the fifties (I think), was exactly like the book. But this one is in a world where the book exists and the travellers follow its guide. This movie is about a man, his nephew and their tour guide going on a mission to find a long-lost brother/father. They end up going to the center of the Earth, seeing all of its wonders. But with wonders, comes danger. Which leads our heroes to get into some very big trouble.Overall, I give this movie an 8 out of 10, which in my ratings book is: Awesome.

Everything is wrong with "Journey to the Center of the earth." It's one of those films that shows how little it had diligence and care go into it's birth, and fails in every category in bringing a somewhat entertaining film with cool stuff. Professor Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) has his teenager nephew Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson). He will be with his uncle while his mother, Elizabeth, prepares to move. She gives a box to Trevor that belonged to his missing brother, Max, and Trevor finds a book with references to the last journey of his brother. He decides to follow the steps of Max with Sean and they travel to Iceland, where they meet the guide Hannah, and end up getting trapped in a new world in the center of the earth. There could have been a little bit of excitement going on in this film. The world they enter has a very ugly and almost a headacheish production design that has lots of illuminate colors and shapes. It doesn't look realistic or beautiful though, like in "Avatar." Not one creature is well-made, not one set is interesting looking, and the film just carries on from one disaster to the next. The CGI is also the worst I have ever seen, which is just one aspect of terrible visual effects present in this motion picture.Everything that you think will happen happens, and what doesn't help is that's in between each tight situation for the three, they try and use quick one-liner comedic references to get them out of there mess. This is a very childish attempt to bring a stylish world to life that's filled with adventure. Not one actor is decent for a second. Everyone is awful, which suites the type of film they are in. "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is a journey for those who watch it, because it so terrible that is hard to persevere through.