Tag: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Movie Round-Up: May 1st, 2009

Reviews

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past:

So, the movie is Scrooge, only with a womanizing bachelor instead of a miserly money lender.  His uncle takes up the Marley role and sends this poor guy on a journey through his relationships, past, present and future to show him the true meaning of Christmas… I mean, love.  Overall it was a decent movie despite the predictability of it.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine:

To be honest, I had little hope at all for this film.  From hearing the changes they made to Deadpool and more, I just assumed this movie would be action packed garbage… and I was right about the action packed, but wrong about the garbage.  It won’t satisfy long term comic fans because of all the changes, but then Wolverine’s origin has always been a muddled mess.  If you loved the other X-Men films, you’ll probably enjoy this too.  Decent, but not great.

Battle for Terra:

I like seeing movies in 3D when the 3D helps the movie and isn’t just a gimmick.  I loved the new Journey to the Center of the Earth, but I hated Fly Me to the Moon.  The reason is because Journey was a good movie even without the 3D, while Fly Me was bad no matter how much 3D they crammed in it.  I haven’t seen Battle for Terra, but the trailers look interesting enough that I think the movie might just be good without the 3D, so adding in 3D ariel combat in on top of that should be awesome.

Fly Me to the Moon

Reviews

4 out of 13 nots.
for wasting 3D on a film not worth seeing

I went an saw Beowulf in 3D and I liked it.  I saw Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D and I loved it.  In Fly Me to the Moon they went for the gusto and used the absolute most 3D they could possibly cram into every single scene and I hated it.  There were so many things going on on so many levels that it physically hurt my eyes to watch some scenes.

If that weren’t enough, the movie itself was boring, the plot had giant holes you could launch the Space Shuttle through, and it wasn’t even very funny.  Unlike other kid’s movies, like those from Pixar, there is nothing in Fly Me to the Moon to appeal to the adults who go see the film with their kids.  In fact, most adults will probably be bothered, like I was, by the inane story and aforementioned plot holes.

The entire film seemed like a bunch of ideas thrown together to use 3D and mesmerize toddlers with pretty colors.  But don’t think just because the movie is aimed at kids that your kids will love it.  If you go see it in a 3D enabled theater, your kids will need to wear the glasses for the whole 84 minutes, and if the population of my theater is any indication, half of kids will “ooh” and “aah” and laugh at the funny flies, while the other half cry at all the things coming at them from the screen.

All in all, I really, honestly, can’t recommend this film to anyone.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Reviews

12 out of 13 nots
for thrilling family fun and 3D awesomeness

Nearly two months ago I was lucky enough to be able to go to an early screening of Journey to the Center of the Earth.  Rather than just simply retelling the Jules Verne novel in the present day, this movie takes the approach of “What if the character in the book had been real, had gone to the center of the Earth, returned, and told his tale to Jules Verne?”  So you wind up with a scientist (Brendan Fraser) whose brother vanished ten years ago while doing research on seismic activity, and now the same seismic pattern is appearing again, so he goes off in search of answers, with nephew in tow.

This movie is pure action adventure family fun.  And I highly recommend it to people with kids… and even people without kids.  Even as an adult I certainly was never bored.

One of the best things about this film, however, is that it is in 3D.  And it is not the old red/green blurry 3D.  This is the new digital 3D like you may have seen in last year’s Beowulf or the 3D version of The Nightmare Before Christmas or to some of the IMAX nature films.  Filmed with a pair of digital cameras that approximate the distance between your eyes, without the special glasses you’ll see two images nearly overlapping, but with the glasses on you’ll see the action almost literally jump off the screen.  And to top it off, the movie only blatantly abuses the 3D angle a few times at the beginning with shoving a couple of things toward the audience for thrills and laughs.  After that, you just feel like you are watching an enhanced film where many scenes just feel more real than you are used to.

Definitely, if you are going to see the movie, try your hardest to see it in a theater that is showing the 3D version.  It is worth it.  I just hope more movies get made in 3D, because it was a blast.