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| | | |  Product Description:
Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 10/28/2008 Rating: Pg Amazon.com:
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D is full of whizz-bang demonstrations of how far 3D technology has come--trilobite antennae quivering towards the audience, a T-rex lunging out of the frame, even affable star Brendan Fraser spitting on us--as well as a half-dozen action sequences clearly destined to become videogames or theme park rides. The plot is incidental: When a seismic geologist (Fraser) discovers his lost brother's notes in a copy of the titular Jules Verne novel, he and his nephew (Josh Hutcherson, Bridge to Terabithia, Zathura) head to Iceland. There, joined by a fetching mountain guide (played by Icelandic actress Anita Briem), they get trapped in a cavern and go down, down, down, finally arriving in a primeval underworld full of prehistoric beasts and carnivorous plants. It would be pointless to complain about the empty-headedness of it all; Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D aspires to be a kinesthetic experience. It wants to engage your adrenal glands, not your brain or your heart (the dialogue and characters are so generic, the script may have been cut-and-pasted from previous versions of Verne's book). Fraser, with his goofy handsomeness and accessible presence, provides a reasonably human axis around which all the frantic flying and swooping CGI effects revolve. The movie is as hollow as the world it depicts, but as mindless action movies go, you could do a lot worse. --Bret Fetzer | | | | |
Average Rating : 
Rating :  - Stereoscopy for this movie not up to professional standards
I saw this film in 3D in San Francisco. It was outstanding. There was excellent technical direction, as well as an interesting story. The film has the usual stereoscopic gags with things popping into your eyes which I object to. With 3D coming into increased use, perhaps Directors will get a clue it plays to the VFX, not the story. As a slight digression, the best stereoscopic movie out there is "The Nightmare Before Christmas" - this is a conversion of a formerly 2D movie; the 3D conversion enhanced the film.
Anaglyph video, as well as anaglyph comics, have been around at least since the 1950's. Whoever did this conversion to a nonstandard choice of green/magenta versus the usual red/cyan does not make sense to me, considering the body of technical knowledge, skill available for such a conversion using red/cyan. Perhaps it is an attempt to deploy rights management, but the glasses are available separately. I observed many alignment problems with JTTCOTE. Some shots with vertical misalignment in the original were not fixed in post. There is a particular scene in the guide's house sitting around a coffee table: it was as if the two cameras had slightly different magnification.
The 2D conversion of the movie was well done, but not excellent. I have viewed several BD videos by now, and I expect a certain amount of care in the conversion.
It is my opinion that the technical deployment of the stereoscopic portion of this BLU-RAY release of JTTCOTE was a hack job, poorly thought out, poorly done. Considering how well the stereoscopic version in the theatrical release was so well done (albeit some minor alignment problems), that it should be so poorly deployed on the DVD release. I saw the discussion of this film at NAB in Las Vegas 2008. The Director and his colleagues put such effort and care in the technical deployment of this film, only to have it so poorly rendered in this DVD release has done the work a considerable disservice. If you are purchasing this release with the goal of viewing this in stereoscopic 3D in your home, it is my strong opinion that you will be very disappointed.
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