A “Journey to the Center of the Earth” takes one’s imagination to the next level, but much of its theatrics and events are a little farfetched.

What do you expect about the idea of a world within the world – a world where dinosaurs aren’t extinct, where volcanoes and geysers make the world so hot that it’s impossible to survive in that climate. OK, that part might not be farfetched, as much of nature’s forces can create extreme environment conditions.

This movie is about Trevor (Brendan Fraser), a professor/scientist who embarks on the journey to find the center of the earth and discover what happened to his brother Max 10 years ago. Together with his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson), he travels to Iceland where a hot spot on the earth’s surface leads him to believe the opening to the center of the earth may be.

Here’s where it gets predictable. The two show up and instead of finding the old scientist they thought they’d run into, they meet his young, very attractive blond daughter. Even though his daughter, Hannah (Anita Briem), doesn’t share in her father and Max’s beliefs of this center of the earth story, she decides to take Trevor and Sean and hike them up to the top of a volcano.

After a very adventurous (and dangerous) entrance into this tube, the three find themselves in this extreme secret world underground. Here they discover Max’s body and in a fight against the rising temperatures discover how to get themselves back up and onto Earth’s surface before being boiled alive.

When I said farfetched earlier, I meant farfetched. The three of them fall so many times, so hard, go through all of these obstacles, crash into things, fall thousands of feet into water, and not one of them has a scratch on them. Hey maybe pain changes when your in a secret world in the center of the Earth. I mean, after all, they were chased by T-Rex, used a river and its steam to shoot themselves to the Earth’s surface and crossed a raging sea in a handmade raft.

However, despite this craziness, the movie did have its entertainment. My 7-year-old nephew wasn’t thinking the same things as me during the movie. He just thought it was cool to watch the dinosaurs and all of the other adventures.

The movie isn’t too long, and I smiled and laughed throughout most, but I could never help thinking how it could have been done a little differently to make me believe, hey this is possible.

I liked Fraser in the “Mummy” series, and although I know they used Anita for her looks in the movie she had a certain charm to her. The kid grew on me too, although he was really annoying throughout.

I think it’s a good movie, although Gary did have someone tell him if you’re going to see on the big screen it would only be worth it in 3-D. I’m thinking he might be right. 

I also thought it was super neat to see how they portrayed Iceland, and to see that they did actually shoot parts of the movie there. I’m glad to see that although I haven’t been to Iceland in 13 years, it still looks like the same country I lived in all those years ago.