Journey to the Center of the Earth: Action. Starring Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem. Directed by Eric Brevig. (PG. 92 minutes. At Bay Area theaters. For complete movie listings and show times, and to buy tickets for select theaters, go to sfgate.com/movies.)
Living at a time when any spectacle imaginable can be put onscreen, action filmmakers have only their good taste to restrain them. It's so easy to dream up monsters and so hard to devise stories and characters. Add into the equation an audience that will flock to whatever makes the biggest noise - not to mention a critical community that often seems willing to lobotomize itself so as to get into the spirit - and it becomes a wonder that anything as satisfying and sensible as "Journey to the Center of the Earth" ever gets made.
No, it's not some earnest dud. "Journey" is a legit action movie with action sequences, imaginative action set pieces and even one or two monsters. It has the wonderful gimmick of 3-D - still a gimmick after 50 years and still lots of fun - and it has some genuinely harrowing moments, in which you may find yourself worrying about the characters and feeling almost as though you're sharing their adventures. "Journey" has the old-fashioned virtue of inciting things like fear and empathy (or pity and terror).
That's what it has. What it doesn't have are bad computer graphics or any scenes involving superheroes battling it out on a congested New York street. It has no scenes of people getting out of their cars to see what the commotion is, only to go bug-eyed at the sight of two muscle-bound men fighting it out in the sky. Instead, it has characters that are idiosyncratic enough to seem true, with lives that are detailed enough so that the character development isn't perfunctory, but essential to how the story unfolds.
Starting out with classic material helps. "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is a loose adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, set in modern times and featuring a professor (Brendan Fraser) who is thoroughly familiar with Verne's story. The professor, goofy but capable, is locked into a bland existence, teaching small classes and trying to pass along the scientific ideas of his older brother, who went missing 10 years ago. The brother, a committed "Vernean," believed that Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was not a work of fiction, but rather a thinly veiled proclamation of scientific discovery.
One day, when seismic patterns are most propitious, the professor sets out for Iceland with his teenage nephew (Josh Hutcherson). To get to a sensor to the top of a mountain, he hires a guide, played by Icelandic actress Anita Briem. But no sooner do they arrive at their destination than a thunderstorm precipitates an avalanche, and they become trapped in a cave. This is where the leisurely buildup pays off. By the time the professor, the nephew and the guide are trapped by 30 tons of rock, their fate is not a matter of indifference to the audience.
It no doubt helps that the professor and the guide are not the usual action-movie types. Fraser is eccentric enough never to be typical, and the guide is not the usual annoyingly spunky (or spunkily annoying) American heroine. The screenplay doesn't degenerate into nonstop wisecracks. The filmmakers, confident enough to trust that the story is interesting, stay focused on the central predicament: three characters, stuck underground.
Considering that the movie is called "Journey to the Center of the Earth," it should come as no surprise that every time the three try to make their way to the surface, they end up going deeper and deeper toward ... the center of the earth. This means various adventures, not to be spelled out here, but also some fantastic sets and, in a lovely touch that's reprised throughout, luminescent birds. Elements that would have been fun in two dimensions take on an extra kick in 3-D.
Indeed, director Eric Brevig could have leaned on the 3-D and the action sequences - he could have indulged himself and bloated his movie by 20 minutes - and still had something that would have pleased most viewers. Instead, he told the story. When the story meant a terrific sequence involving someone jumping across an abyss, from one magnetic (floating) rock to another, he provided it. When it didn't, he didn't try to fit one in.
This is Brevig's first feature film. Before that, he served as a visual effects supervisor or second unit director on a number of well-known movies. His restraint is admirable in a visual effects man, but maybe that's not as rare as we might expect. "Journey" shows that Brevig knows exactly what visual effects can do - and more important, what they can't.
Journey to the Center of the Earth: Action. Starring Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem. Directed by Eric Brevig. (PG. 92 minutes. At Bay Area theaters. For complete movie listings and show times, and to buy tickets for select theaters, go to sfgate.com/movies.)
Living at a time when any spectacle imaginable can be put onscreen, action filmmakers have only their good taste to restrain them. It's so easy to dream up monsters and so hard to devise stories and characters. Add into the equation an audience that will flock to whatever makes the biggest noise - not to mention a critical community that often seems willing to lobotomize itself so as to get into the spirit - and it becomes a wonder that anything as satisfying and sensible as "Journey to the Center of the Earth" ever gets made.
No, it's not some earnest dud. "Journey" is a legit action movie with action sequences, imaginative action set pieces and even one or two monsters. It has the wonderful gimmick of 3-D - still a gimmick after 50 years and still lots of fun - and it has some genuinely harrowing moments, in which you may find yourself worrying about the characters and feeling almost as though you're sharing their adventures. "Journey" has the old-fashioned virtue of inciting things like fear and empathy (or pity and terror).
That's what it has. What it doesn't have are bad computer graphics or any scenes involving superheroes battling it out on a congested New York street. It has no scenes of people getting out of their cars to see what the commotion is, only to go bug-eyed at the sight of two muscle-bound men fighting it out in the sky. Instead, it has characters that are idiosyncratic enough to seem true, with lives that are detailed enough so that the character development isn't perfunctory, but essential to how the story unfolds.
Starting out with classic material helps. "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is a loose adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, set in modern times and featuring a professor (Brendan Fraser) who is thoroughly familiar with Verne's story. The professor, goofy but capable, is locked into a bland existence, teaching small classes and trying to pass along the scientific ideas of his older brother, who went missing 10 years ago. The brother, a committed "Vernean," believed that Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was not a work of fiction, but rather a thinly veiled proclamation of scientific discovery.
One day, when seismic patterns are most propitious, the professor sets out for Iceland with his teenage nephew (Josh Hutcherson). To get to a sensor to the top of a mountain, he hires a guide, played by Icelandic actress Anita Briem. But no sooner do they arrive at their destination than a thunderstorm precipitates an avalanche, and they become trapped in a cave. This is where the leisurely buildup pays off. By the time the professor, the nephew and the guide are trapped by 30 tons of rock, their fate is not a matter of indifference to the audience.
It no doubt helps that the professor and the guide are not the usual action-movie types. Fraser is eccentric enough never to be typical, and the guide is not the usual annoyingly spunky (or spunkily annoying) American heroine. The screenplay doesn't degenerate into nonstop wisecracks. The filmmakers, confident enough to trust that the story is interesting, stay focused on the central predicament: three characters, stuck underground.
Considering that the movie is called "Journey to the Center of the Earth," it should come as no surprise that every time the three try to make their way to the surface, they end up going deeper and deeper toward ... the center of the earth. This means various adventures, not to be spelled out here, but also some fantastic sets and, in a lovely touch that's reprised throughout, luminescent birds. Elements that would have been fun in two dimensions take on an extra kick in 3-D.
Indeed, director Eric Brevig could have leaned on the 3-D and the action sequences - he could have indulged himself and bloated his movie by 20 minutes - and still had something that would have pleased most viewers. Instead, he told the story. When the story meant a terrific sequence involving someone jumping across an abyss, from one magnetic (floating) rock to another, he provided it. When it didn't, he didn't try to fit one in.
This is Brevig's first feature film. Before that, he served as a visual effects supervisor or second unit director on a number of well-known movies. His restraint is admirable in a visual effects man, but maybe that's not as rare as we might expect. "Journey" shows that Brevig knows exactly what visual effects can do - and more important, what they can't.
