A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
CRITIQUE | QUOTES | AT THE MOVIES
First U.S. edition, 1874Original title
Voyage au centre de la Terre
Also called
Journey to the Centre of the Earth, A Journey into the Interior of the Earth
First publication
1864, expanded 1867
Literature form
Novel
Genres
Science fiction, adventure
Writing language
French
Author's country
France
Length
Approx. 73,000 words in English translation
Jennifer Dorogi leads an all-female team fighting monstrous creatures in 2008 rip-off of Jules Verne classic.
Cheese at the earth's centre
Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008): Directors David Jones, Scott Wheeler; writer Steve Bevilacqua; featuring Greg Evigan, Dedee Pfeiffer, Jennifer Dorogi, Sara Tomko, Vanessa Evigan
Here's another one to dispense with quickly, though it does offer a few entertaining moments, probably more than the average low-budget direct-to-video flick.
This second of three supposed adaptations of Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth to be released in mid-2008 was intended to capitalize on viewers confusion with the big-budget movie with the same title hitting theatres ten days later. (Another take on the novel had been aired on American television early in the year.)
This one doesn't try very hard to follow Verne's plot line, nor use any of his characters. A research team of loosely dressed young women is beamed down (Star Trek style) to 600 kilometres below the surface and are lost. In a landscape inexplicably identical to the earth's sun-bathed surface, the females fight off dinosaurs, giant spiders and lava flows.
The trailer for the 2008 low-budget video flick tells you all you have to know.
To rescue them, a pair of squabbling ex-spouses, played by TV stars Greg Evigan (My Two Dads, Tek War) and Dedee Pfeiffer (For Your Love, Big Sky), pilot a drilling ship through the earth's crust, encountering along the way a different kind of monster that tries to eat their ship.
Special effects are suitably poor for a low-budget action movie.
The script does try to create some subplots involving the relationships among the members of the two teams but these are as skimpy as the women's clothing and fail to divert attention from the video's overall cheesiness.
— Eric
See also:
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Buy the book:
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
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