Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Journey To The Center Of The Earth

As a kid, I was fascinated by Jules Verne's novel. When I wasn't reading books by Verne and author Ray Bradbury, I was fantasizing about discovering, or living in, new and exciting worlds.

Just behind the house I grew up in was a deep creek. The creek's banks separated our yard from woodlands, and both sides were very steep. During one summer in my pre-teen years, I spent days digging into the side of the highest bank, believing fully that before Autumn I would reach the Earth's center. With one end of the rope tied securely to a tree and the other end tied tight around my waist, I dangled over that embankment day after day after day.


Digging.

I think I dug into the bank about three feet in that Summer. I didn't dig far enough to see giant mushrooms, much less prehistoric animals. But inside my head, I sure had me some adventure. I was journeying to the center of the earth.

Even without the 3-D gimmick this movie had in its theatrical release, Journey To The Center Of The Earth is a fun, family oriented movie. Sure, the flick is cheesy. The plot is well known and predictable, the acting is average at best. The action seems designed to facilitate the 3-D effect, which sometimes takes away from the fantasy.

So it's not perfect. Like I said, it's cheesy.

But it's fun cheesy, if you just let yourself go with it.

3 comments:

Paul said...

Sometimes cheesy fun is just what the doctor ordered. That's why I have such affection for Fraser's Mummy films.

Speaking of cheese, I finally saw the reboot of The Hulk. I liked it more than I expected to. It isn't great, but it's decent fun.

The Film Geek said...

Agreed!

Maybe my dissatisfaction with Hulk is that I never liked the comic. Maybe I should give it a second look.

Paul said...

I was never into the Hulk comics either, but I liked the TV show.

The biggest liability any Hulk movie has it that the character always looks like a video game. At least with characters such as Spider-man and Batman (and even Iron Man) is that they only use CGI for the crazy stunts. The rest of the time you're actually looking at a real person in a costume. It's impossible to do that with Hulk.