JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is a loose adaptation of the famous Jules Verne novel about explorers heading into the bowels of the Earth and discovering a secret world beneath our feet. It was made by Hallmark, who did a number of classically-based TV miniseries around the turn of the century, and is cheap and cheesy enough to feel more like an Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation rather than something more serious.The main problem with this miniseries is that there just isn't enough incident to extend to a three-hour running time, thus half of it is padding with endless romantic sub-plots and the like. The cheap CGI effects used to animate the dinosaurs are really appalling, and the wooden acting isn't much better. Treat Williams looks mildly embarrassed to be here, while Jeremy London's acting pales in comparison to that of his twin brother Jason. Hugh Keay-Byrne is a larger than life Scotsman and best known for his villainous turns in MAD MAX numbers one and four, while Bryan Brown gives the most entertaining and over-the-top turn. This Aussie production was directed by one George Miller, but it's not the MAD MAX fellow, sadly.

For some reason I thought I was renting (from the machine at Safeway) the LATEST version of this film with Brendon Frazier as they usually have new releases there. How stupid of me. It turned out to be the 1999 version with Treat Williams. Only a few minutes into it I realized it was a made for TV by Lifetime. The producers had a lot of nerve coming up with this comic book adaptation of such a great novel. Poor Jules Verne. It was not too bad until they reach New Zealand and enter the cave leading to what they call the center of the earth that turned out to be a movie set with blue painted trees and studio made mache rocks. They all act as if they're at Disneyland on an underground ride. And when they meet the creatures who speak English it's beyond belief. Obviously there was a ballet school somewhere behind those rocks, even with a choreographer, as a full corps of ballet girls were dancing with ballet steps mixed with disco dancing. Totally ridiculous. The husband of the Carnegie heiress who they were looking for and found, speaks with an Australian accent and doesn't give a damn after finding out that Treat Williams had screwed his wife someplace behind a rock, but more unbelievable is that Treat would fall in love with her anyway as she's not at all attractive besides being one of the worst actors I've ever seen. Where did they find her? In a High School play? Then, of course, there's an evil Queen but I fast forwarded over most of that scene so don't know what she was up to. Should I care? The only thing worth looking at is Treat Williams who seems to have kept his youth remarkably. Now I can't wait to see the Brendon Frazier one that's still playing in the theaters in 3D. I should have known better.

Oh my, such a great tale so artlessly told. Verne, for those of you that don't know, is (or rather was)one of the true visionaries of science fiction literature. JTTCOTE is one of his evergreen tales that has been endlessly re-made and re-worked by Hollywood. It even spawned a long-forgotten 70's cartoon series.This film is does not serve the Verne's legacy well. There has clearly been money spent on it - some of the special effects are workmanlike - and a few of the c-list actors can turn in a decent performance when put to it. Here however, they are there for the paycheck and nothing more. I could live with that if they were at least working with a good script but everywhere you look there is cliché piled upon cliché and sloppy directing and production design.I guess if you really want to know about this film, watch it and see for yourself but I warn you now, it's about fifteen hours long. At least that is what it felt like! But I guess the best flavour of the piece comes from the fact that the women of an underground undiscovered tribe of natives wear make-up, speak English in a late 20th century idiom and shave their armpits with some kind of incredibly close shaver. And they dance disco style! All this in the nineteenth century...Go on, try it. It's one of those "so bad, it's good" type movies...

This one is an unimpressive adaptation of one of the most important novels of Jules Verne known as the writer who creates science fiction as a literary genre (in fact, Journey to the Center of the Earth is credited by Arthur C. Clarke as the best novel of Verne). This version have some good special effects but lacks impact and originality. If you want to see a better view of the same novel, see the version with James Mason instead. I give this a 4 (four).