"Journey to the Center of the Earth"
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51G9PWES3QL._SS500_.jpg
this is a review of a DVD from 2004 of a movie
filmed in 1999 and made for cable TV.
There are several real cave scenes in this movie. One of them appears
to be 3 people rappelling simultaneously ( as silhouettes ) into a large deep
tag-like pit.
Most of the cave scenes appear to be artificial studio made caves.
I liked this movie. In some ways it resembles the "Land of the Lost"
TV series for kids back in the 70's. But that is why the critics hated it.
I thought the actors all played their parts very well. The graphics were
good, but considered the low end of modern CGI.
I only paid $ 7 for the DVD at Fry's.
The studio failed greatly by naming this movie "Journey to the Center of
the Earth." Other than their quest to go deep underground, there
almost no similarity to the story of Jules Verne's version.
The movie should have been called "The Caverns of Tongariro."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tongariro
It is obvious that this movie has an Australian/ New Zealand flavor to
the story, but I liked that.
It is easy to see why everybody hated this movie as the plot was weak, however,
if you can overlook that, and sit back and take it for what it is, then I think
it is enjoyable, but young teenagers will hate the cheezy graphics and adults
familiar with the old story will wonder why it is so different from the original
story.
Here are just some of the flaws:
The 4 cave explorers in 1876 explored the caverns way past 6 miles of
depth, with just 4 wind-up rechargeable electric hand-held lanterns. They
were extremely unprepared for such a journey. The girl wore a dress
the whole time in the cave and they nevered seemed to get dirty. The
first pit was about 3,000 feet deep. They each had their own manilla
rope for the rappel, yet when they left for the hike, they only carried 2 or
3 short coils of rope. They never showed the rappeling device or
harness, but it appeared they were using a double rope to rappel, thus
they each had over 6,000 feet of rope. At the bottom and through
the remainder of the trip, they still carried their coils of rope.
They ascended from the deep underground to the surface through a
water portal in just a few seconds without getting the bends or any
other side effect, and the girl couldn't even swim.
They also dropped all their gear and packs into the deep pits without
any breakage.
They could not have gone more than 10 miles of depth, probably more
like 6 and 1/2 half. Yet, they believed they were at the center of the
earth. The cave passages that they walked on were mostly
horizontal and dry.
But if you can ignore all of that and more, you might like it.
Most of the actors have their own Wikipedia page,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Brown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treat_Williams
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra_Jared
These actors could potentially be in future movies. For example,
Bryan Brown is in the upcoming "Australia" with Nicole Kidman.
So if they were to every become famous,
it would be interesting to go back and watch this DVD if you haven't already.
David
Ref:
http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/j.c.o.e.1999.html
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