Reise zum Mittelpunkt der Erde

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.

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).

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 went into this movie expecting crap, because it was made for TV, but I was pleasantly surprised. The acting was very good, with each actor seeming very comfortable in their characters. Treat Williams and Jeremy London worked very well as a uncle/nephew team, and Hugh Keays-Byrne delivered some serious laughs as Scottish gun smuggler-turned-guide McNiff. Bryan Brown portrays the film's antagonist with equal arrogance and intensity; very entertaining.

The problem is most people were expecting a good quality movie. The reality is, this was made for TV, and if you lower your expectations completely, it's actually a good movie.

The science is flawed, but so was Verne's, so no harm no foul. The special effects are bad, but like I said, it's made for TV. The scenery and locations are engaging and very cool. The caves are somewhat cheesy at times, but that's easily unnoticed if you pay attention to the characters. The action is visibly fake at times, especially the gunfire and fistfights, but not in a bad way.

All in all, the film contains very likable characters, genuine humor, and a very good soundtrack (another thing most reviews fail to mention). Just watch it in good humor and enjoy the story.

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.