Journey to the Center of the Earth

Film directed by Eric Brevig In UK and US cinemas now

When Jules Verne wrote A Journey to the Centre of the Earth in 1864, science was still coming to terms with the planet's extreme age, and Verne's story of a swiss-cheese globe containing vast seas and prehistoric creatures had a satisfying ring of plausibility. The novel's eccentric scientist, Otto Lidenbrock, invokes real-life researchers from Humphry Davy to Joseph Fourier, and the thrilling plot is regularly punctuated by scientific musings that were then cutting-edge.

The book may have inspired many to become geologists, but for recent generations of readers, the obvious impossibility of the subterranean voyage has detracted from its allure. It was even “too fantastic” for David Stevenson of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, who proposed an unmanned mission to probe Earth's core in this journal in 2003.

So this 2008 cinematic visit to Verne's strange subterranean world is more akin to fantasy than science fiction. Journey to the Center of the Earth, the new 3D film by special-effects guru Eric Brevig, is silly — in a good way. And within its imaginary world, the film holds science and fact in high regard.

Jules Verne dismantled: Journey to the Center of the Earth is silly, but holds science in high regard. Credit: S. RAYMOND/NEW LINE CINEMA

The film is not an exact remake of the novel. Rather, it imagines a world where a few present-day maverick geologists called Vernites believe the novel to be fact not fiction. The action follows a geologist, played for broad comedy by Brendan Fraser, his sullen teenage nephew (Josh Hutcherson) and the Icelandic daughter of a missing Vernite (Anita Briem).

A sleight of hand with the science — a few “seismic readings” on a computer screen — gets the trio to the centre of Earth. But once underground, science saves the day as Fraser's character shows expert knowledge of mineral properties that rescues them from lava, dinosaurs and the like.

The film's tough scientist hero and its exciting caverns and formations might even have the effect on young audiences that the novel presumably had on previous proto-geologists. It vividly portrays the geological world of rocks and lava as diverse, dynamic and cool. It also pokes fun at the maverick scientist trope, with deadpan lines like “Although [he] was ridiculed by the scientific community, he was eventually found to be correct.”

That said, the movie is pretty mindless. It has the standard comedic patter in the face of danger, with punchlines you can see coming all 6,400 kilometres from the centre of Earth. Mandatory shots take advantage of the 3D to make the audience jump. Happily, it doesn't take itself too seriously: “Eat your trilobite son; you've got to keep your strength up.” And its new and improved 3D effects are a lot of fun to watch.