Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

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Like any conscientious movie critic, I do what I can to avoid clichés, and since I am only human I don’t always succeed. But I have long vowed never to stoop to what I regard as the lowest kind of hackery, which is to describe a motion picture as a thrill ride, a heckofa ride or any other kind of ride.”Journey to the Center of the Earth,” a new movie that shares its name with a beloved Jules Verne novel, copies of which occasionally appear on screen? On their way to the titular destination, the three main characters - a geologist (Brendan Fraser), his young nephew (Josh Hutcherson) and an Icelandic mountain guide (Anita Briem) - speed down steeply inclined tracks in wheeled cars, rather like a roller coaster. A bit later, as they fly through the subterranean air, one of them predicts that they will descend into something “just like a water slide.” Near the end, after they have parasailed, fled from beasts and surfed on magnetic rocks, they whiz down a green hillside on a sled improvised from the jawbone of a dinosaur. If this movie is not a ride, then what is it?

One thing it may not be, quite, is a movie. The 3-D technology, which you experience (in the theaters where it’s available) through spiffy gray-tinted glasses, does provide a few “Wow!,” “Eww!” and “Yikes!” moments, though the most impressive of them are also the least spectacular, as when Mr. Hutcherson swings a yo-yo or Mr. Fraser, after brushing his teeth, spits into the sink. Otherwise the effect messes with your ability to see clearly what is in the frame, so that the actors look like cutouts arranged in a snow globe.

Not that they have much dimension to work with, since the script, by Michael Weiss, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, is as functional as the direction, by Eric Brevig, is fussy. The geologist, whose brother vanished trying to prove his Vernean hypothesis, takes the brother’s adolescent son to Iceland, where they meet the mountain guide, whose father also vanished into the center of the Earth. A lot of scientifically preposterous, mildly diverting stuff happens down there, and then, just like that, the ride is over.

“Journey to the Center of the Earth” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). A few mildly upsetting and potentially scary encounters.

Dedicated To ”Belgica” From Language LIne

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JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH