The reviewers of "Journey" are probably all correct: the logic is spotty, the premise is silly, and the requirement of the audience to suspend disbelief is beyond a typically successful film. However, despite all of that, I liked it! I went to see it because in my small town the offerings are rather slim, and I had seen everything else (is it me, or did this summer's films seem a bit clichéd and lame?).
Brendan Fraser has always been a great actor, with an agreeable presence. That he was the star here helped a lot. As did the newcomer actor, the Icelandic lady- Anita Briem. Somehow, one never seems to think of film stars as coming from Iceland. But she is comely and interesting to watch, and she looked good with Fraser. The supporting cast (and there wasn't much of them, as it was mostly CGI stuff, and not really populated with many humans, except for brief appearances) was also adequate, albeit they had little to do.
Overall, then, this was science fiction with an emphasis on the "fiction." Little here was even remotely believable. Yet taken together, it made an interesting visual contemplation of "what if?" and an enjoyable couple of hours at the cinema (for example, the characters free-fall to the "center of the earth," which would be 4,000 MILES down. Allowing for the rather slap-dash explanation of "magma envelopes" and all, we are nonetheless asked to believe they fell thousands of miles in a few seconds. The lava tube they fell down, fake as it was, was kind of evocative--- it did bring to mind a sense of mystery, and the powers of nature that are WAY beyond our everyday experiences, even if it was rather silly).
Oh, BTW, an obvious logic flaw--- if there really was a magma envelope surrounding the interior ocean and lush tropical paradise--- why didn't the free-fall take them through that, it being a sphere and all? Don't even think about it! Just enjoy the fairy tale.
Brendan Fraser has always been a great actor, with an agreeable presence. That he was the star here helped a lot. As did the newcomer actor, the Icelandic lady- Anita Briem. Somehow, one never seems to think of film stars as coming from Iceland. But she is comely and interesting to watch, and she looked good with Fraser. The supporting cast (and there wasn't much of them, as it was mostly CGI stuff, and not really populated with many humans, except for brief appearances) was also adequate, albeit they had little to do.
Overall, then, this was science fiction with an emphasis on the "fiction." Little here was even remotely believable. Yet taken together, it made an interesting visual contemplation of "what if?" and an enjoyable couple of hours at the cinema (for example, the characters free-fall to the "center of the earth," which would be 4,000 MILES down. Allowing for the rather slap-dash explanation of "magma envelopes" and all, we are nonetheless asked to believe they fell thousands of miles in a few seconds. The lava tube they fell down, fake as it was, was kind of evocative--- it did bring to mind a sense of mystery, and the powers of nature that are WAY beyond our everyday experiences, even if it was rather silly).
Oh, BTW, an obvious logic flaw--- if there really was a magma envelope surrounding the interior ocean and lush tropical paradise--- why didn't the free-fall take them through that, it being a sphere and all? Don't even think about it! Just enjoy the fairy tale.