How Not to Make a Film About Dinosaurs...

Journey to the Centre of the Earth
(Eric Brevig, 2008)

2.5 Stars

Sometimes a film comes around that intrigues… Sometimes it’s a remake of an old favourite, sometimes it’s just a really good plot, and then occasionally it’s an adaptation of an old classic that you’ve loved for a long time. That unfortunately sucks.

Starring action favourite Brendan Fraser, last year’s could-have-been summer blockbuster, filled with frolics and japes of Lost-Worldly proportions.

Of course, when buying a movie about dinosaurs, one freakin’ well expects some ruddy dinosaurs.

Setting itself as some kind of bizarre sequel to Verne’s classic, Journey envisages that Verne was not a fiction writer, but in fact a historian, chronicling his real life adventures to the centre of the earth, under the sea, and all that jazz. It’s a novel idea, but is utterly let down by a boring execution, a rather inept cast (let’s face it, Fraser is only any good if playing opposite John Hannah – The Mummy 3 excluded, or swinging around in a loin cloth), and a SEVERE LACK OF DINOSAURS.

So, word to the wise; for those studio genii currently working on Jurassic Park IV, you can fudge it up as much as you like.

Just remember the sodding dinosaurs!