Journey To The Center Of The Earth (it’s an American title, even my spellchecker is trying to stop it) is a 2008 film starring Brendan Fraser (star of The Mummy, a similarly inaccurate series of films), Josh Hutcherson from the Cirque Du Freak adaptation, and Anita Briem, an Icelandic woman who occasionally (and somewhat inexplicably) shows mild traces of a British accent as an Icelandic mountain guide.
It’s an adaptation of one of Jules Verne’s books (name’s in the title, first published 1864), which is drawn upon several times in the film as inspiration. Rather confusingly, it can be considered a sequel to the 19th century novel, while following the actual sequence of events pretty closely (just like Highlander 3).
The film depends on the famous Hollow Earth theory being true. Indeed, the film even acknowledges this should be impossible, and those who take the writings of a dead sci-fi author seriously are justifiably called crazy – until they’re proven to be right, of course. Like most of Fraser’s work, it requires heavy suspension of disbelief, but the original story required that as well and it’s a good read — give it a go sometime.
In keeping with the overall theme of subterranean impossibilities, there are some logical impossibilities about the plant life and stuff that evolved in the tunnels and so on, such as the carnivorous plants and the freaking big dinosaur being there! Aside from that, there’s a sequence in which Brendan Fraser punches one of the aforementioned carnivorous plants in the face. I’m sorry, but you cannot look bad-ass if you punch a plant in its face, no matter how big it is (and the plant was unnecessarily big, by the way – no fly or insect that we see in the film is that big, so no need for the plant to be either).
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