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Journey To The Center Of The Earth

1999, Movie, NR, 139 mins

Journey To The Center Of The Earth: Review

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Disney's 1959 adaptation of Jules Verne's classic novel delighted mobs of squealing kids, and this cheesily produced TV spectacular in no way improves on it. This remake is best enjoyed by sci-fi cheerleaders who welcome any excuse to walk back into pre-historic times. 1875: Boston professor Theodore Lytton (Treat Williams) rejoices when wealthy Alice Hastings (Tushka Bergen) offers to finance an expedition to Auckland, New Zealand. But she's not interested in science; Alice's husband, Casper (Bryan Brown), disappeared there nearly seven years ago while searching for gold. The guilt-ridden Alice hopes that Theodore and his nephew, Jonas (Jason London), can find Caspar. Once in Auckland, two unexpected travelers join Theodore's band: fugitive blacksmith McNiff (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who proves indispensable in native negotiations, and Alice herself, who threatens to cut off funds unless Theodore takes her along. After navigating their way through civil unrest between the Maoris and the government, the intrepid explorers begin a descent through a volcanic structure. Reaching the center of the Earth, they not only discover oversized beasts and human tribes, but also an upright, intelligent race evolved from dinosaurs. They also learn that Casper is alive and well, palming himself off as king of an ethnic group primed for battle with a banished tribe. Although Casper's willing to return to civilization, he won't go empty-handed; he intends to retrieve an all-purpose healing plant from the unfriendly Exiles' camp. Casper names McNiff his royal successor and steals the holistic greenery. Can Theodore's pack make it back to the surface when the dino-people and the Exiles would prefer they stay below? Once you've seen Steven Spielberg's expensive, amusement-park version of the dinosaur age, it's hard to settle for low-rent lava and poverty row fossils. But what it lacks in soulless Spielbergian hard-sell, this scaled-down TV enterprise makes up in scrappy ambience; it's got the modest charm of a 1930s serial leave a comment --Robert Pardi
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