JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (2008). Directors: David Jones; Scott Wheeler.
This direct-to-video feature was, naturally, shown on the Sci Fi channel, the graveyard for all bad direct-to-video movies. A group of soldiers are dematerialized (as in Star Trek) and sent on a mission but somehow things go wrong and they wind up in a prehistoric world located in the middle of the earth -- but which looks more like Southern California. In the meantime, Joseph Harnet (Greg Evigan) and Emily Radford (Dedee Pfeiffer) take a boring machine into the Earth and try to rescue them. The very few computer-generated dinosaurs are unexceptional, but the large black, skittering spiders are a little bit better. Some of the actors are enthusiastic, Pfeiffer and the likable Evigan are good, and the screenplay is perfectly workable. But ultimately this is just another Jules Verne rip-off that proves immensely forgettable.
Verdict: Watch the 1959 version instead. **.
This direct-to-video feature was, naturally, shown on the Sci Fi channel, the graveyard for all bad direct-to-video movies. A group of soldiers are dematerialized (as in Star Trek) and sent on a mission but somehow things go wrong and they wind up in a prehistoric world located in the middle of the earth -- but which looks more like Southern California. In the meantime, Joseph Harnet (Greg Evigan) and Emily Radford (Dedee Pfeiffer) take a boring machine into the Earth and try to rescue them. The very few computer-generated dinosaurs are unexceptional, but the large black, skittering spiders are a little bit better. Some of the actors are enthusiastic, Pfeiffer and the likable Evigan are good, and the screenplay is perfectly workable. But ultimately this is just another Jules Verne rip-off that proves immensely forgettable.
Verdict: Watch the 1959 version instead. **.
